


Fantasia para un Gentilhombre

by Fancy Lads Snacks (Filthy_Bunny)



Series: Judesville [5]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arcade is a closeted romantic, Backstory, Caesar's Legion, Depression, Drama, Drug Abuse, F/M, First Meetings, Friendship, Humor, Jude bangs his way around the Mojave, M/M, NCR | New California Republic, POV Multiple, Pre-Relationship, Prequel, Pretentious Title, Radio New Vegas, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Western, Worldbuilding, and accidentally becomes famous, good karma courier, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-04 17:43:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14025351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filthy_Bunny/pseuds/Fancy%20Lads%20Snacks
Summary: The Mojave crouches under the looming shadow of war. Life limps along for some; for others it has ground to a halt. Then a courier with a smart mouth and a hole in his head blows in off the I-15, and goes from being a nobody to a rumour, then a myth, and eventually--quite against his will--a hero.ORThe story of how Arcade was Jude's biggest fanboy long before their paths ever crossed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old work of mine which I wrote based on a prompt at the old Fallout kinkmeme. I never shared it here until now because it's unfinished, so please bear that in mind if you choose to read it! However, it is (in my opinion at least) some of the best writing I have produced to date, and seeing as how my New Vegas fics have been picking up more readers lately, I thought I'd submit this too. The rest of my Judesville stories take place after this, so you can check them out if you'd like to get an idea of the kind of resolution I had for the Mojave and Jude himself (check the series link if interested; they are mostly smut, though). 
> 
> I'm very happy to be told if you'd like it to continue, as it is merely dormant rather than abandoned, but please be aware that at the time of writing this my main focus is on finishing my Fallout 4 fic Paper Moon, Lead Balloon, so it might be a while. Especially if you know how long it takes me to update. ¬_¬ 
> 
> Title inspired by the Joaquín Rodrigo guitar concerto of the same name, particularly the [second movement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbBo1Q-aFKg). (This is the piece of music Arcade listens to in chapter one.) 
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: while there is lots of light-hearted content, this story also deals with some of the typical horrors to be expected of Caesar's Legion, plus other potential triggers including substance abuse and depression with some suicidation.

**Arcade**

“Need any help out here?”

Julie looked up at Arcade, squinting a little in the morning sun. There was no hesitation before she replied, “No, we’re good.”

“You sure?” Arcade stood with his hands in his pockets, jingling the few bottlecaps there. “I could just follow you round a little, nod when you talk, hand things to you when you need them. I’m an accomplished thing-hander.”

Julie gave him a hard look. There wasn’t much about her that was soft. She had a big heart beneath the prickly exterior, but she loved as tough as she did everything else.

“I don’t need you out here, Arcade.”

He didn’t flinch at her words, at least not on the outside. He never showed very much. Maybe he should. She probably thought he was being glib.

“All right then. I just wanted to show my face to the sun. If I don’t get a few minutes a day I’m concerned my eyes will wither and become useless, like those sightless fish that live in caves.”

There he was again, sounding glib. Before Julie could turn her irritation on him again, Arcade turned and headed back to his windowless room in the walls of the fort.

He hadn’t expected any different. Julie hadn’t forgiven him yet; perhaps she never would. He hadn’t forgiven himself either. But he missed her. Julie had been his closest friend since he came to Freeside, and she no longer trusted him.

He sat at his desk and wondered which pointless plant combination he could try next. He sighed and swept the shrivelled yucca cuttings from his desk into the trash, trying not to feel crushed by the meaninglessness of his work before he’d even started the day. The tribals had long ago established the healing properties of broc flower and xander root, and his time would have been considerably better spent cultivating crops of each. But Freeside didn’t have the water. Instead, Julie had tasked him with developing alternatives from plants that were in greater supply. She knew as well as he did that it was an exercise in futility, but somehow Arcade was still collecting a pay check for it, albeit a meagre one. He was still surprised she hadn’t just fired him. Maybe she knew that without the Followers, he really wouldn’t stand a chance. She cared enough to keep him from greater harm. Knowing that didn’t make it feel any less like a punishment.

He kicked against his desk and rolled his chair across to the shelf by the door to switch on the radio. He’d been cooped up in this room long enough to know the exact angle and force necessary to scoot his seat to every key point in the room: desk, workbench, radio, lamp, bed. At this rate his legs would wither along with his eyes. He fiddled with the dial on the radio until he found the station he liked. It was run by an old lady down near Novac, where Daisy lived.

Dolly Gibson was a walking, talking treasure trove. From what he could tell she collected junk for a living, but she also collected stories. She was forever recounting some old anecdote, letting her words drift out onto the airwaves, and she was far more entertaining than the slick-voiced Mr New Vegas or any of the other hacks who’d had the good fortune to salvage a working ham radio. But the stories weren’t the real reason Arcade tuned in to Gibson’s signal. The real treasure was her record collection. She had everything from baroque to barbershop, but what Arcade loved the most was the classical.

Today he was in luck. As Arcade sailed his chair back to the desk, the strains of Spanish guitar flooded into his dim little room like sun on desert sand. He knew this piece. Something by Rodrigo. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t have to worry about being interrupted. No one came back here other than Julie, en route to her upstairs room at the end of the night. The music washing over him eased his tension. His mind unfolded like a backdrop, turning notes into images. The swell of the orchestra conjured wide open plains and dramatic sunsets. The pluck of guitar strings became a lone rider crossing the rolling landscape on horseback, nameless and directionless, wandering from village to village through triumph and tragedy.

Arcade opened his eyes and stared at the desktop, embarrassed by his own romanticism. Even so, a pang of feeling that was equal parts beauty and pain gripped his chest so suddenly it was hard to breathe. He exhaled heavily and rubbed his eyes under the rim of his glasses.

He had to get out of the Fort before he lost his mind. And not just to Freeside. He had to get out beyond the walls and do something _useful_. He would talk to Julie again about heading to the NCR farm, look into getting some more water piped to the Fort, or at least see if they could borrow a patch of sharecropper land to grow medicinal plants. He’d even let Julie send someone with him to babysit so he didn’t get into any trouble. Something, _anything_ to have the feeling that he was more than this. To be more than a faded idealist growing old in an office chair while he waited for the war to come and finish him off. To be a man with a mission.

*****

**Cass**

“You look familiar.”

The stranger had just taken a seat at the bar to her right. Cass had neither the patience nor the whisky to endure another bullshit conversation today, so she simply gave a warning shake of her head. In her peripheral vision, the man took off his hat and laid it on the bar top.

“You from Vegas or further West?”

She lifted her glass. “Back it up, asshole.”

The guy just laughed. “Well, ain’t you a flower. Don’t worry, I’m only looking to wet my whistle. Not _that_ whistle.” He waved for the bartender’s attention. “Matter of fact, I already have a date. In around—” He looked at what appeared to be some kind of terminal strapped to his wrist. It lit his face with a greenish glow. “An hour and a half.”

She actually glanced at him now, and for a moment regretted the shutdown. He was handsome; a few years younger than her, probably, but with that weathered ruggedness she liked. Dark hair, wicked eyes. Still, her mood was too black today to get excited about it.

“Whoopee for you,” she said. She tipped back the last of her drink.

“You a trader?”

“I look like a soldier to you?”

He watched her for a moment. “Guess they’re not letting anything through, huh.”

“Not a goddamn bean,” Cass muttered. “Bunch of pen pushers decided the roads ain’t safe. I asked ‘em when in the last two hundred years these roads have ever been fucking safe.”

The man laughed again. “Not in any of the years I’ve been walking them, that’s for sure.” The bartender came over, and he ordered a beer.

“You with a rig?” she asked, despite herself.

“Nah. Just a courier these days,” he replied. “But I used to ride the caravans.”

“Which company?”

“Red Rover.” His beer arrived, and he got up to pat down his pockets for caps. He passed a few across the bar with a smile and sat back down.

“I know the name,” Cass said. “Ain’t seen ‘em around the Mojave for a long while, though.”

The man shook his head. “You’re not likely to any time soon. Went out of business, almost two years back.” He took a long swig from his bottle. “Who’re you with? When you’re not tangled up in red tape, that is.”

She sighed. “Cassidy Caravans.”

“Yeah?” He squinted at her. “I _knew_ I recognised you from somewhere. I used to cross paths with you in the old days, back in Cali, mostly. How’s business?”

She shook her head and looked at her glass, which badly needed refilling. “Dead.” She grimaced. “While I was parked here on my ass watching these fuckers pass paperwork back and forth across a desk, my rig got hit somewhere south of the Strip. It’s all gone.”

His face fell. “God damn,” he said. He gestured to the bartender again and pointed to Cass’ empty glass. “So you’re Cassidy, I take it?” She nodded. He turned in his seat and extended his hand. Now he was facing her, she noticed the grubby bandage taped against the side of his head. “Jude,” he said. His grip was firm. She decided she may have some time for him after all. “Shit. Well, Miss Cassidy, I believe I know your sorrow. Red Rover was my baby. We got caught in a raider ambush back West. I lost it all.”

“Your crew, too?”

She noticed the way his jaw tightened. “Most of ‘em, yeah. After I’d paid out to their families, there was nothing left to keep the company going.” He forced a smile. “Hence the career change.”

By now Cass’ glass had been refilled, and he tilted his bottle towards her. “To the roads. They giveth, and they taketh away.”

Glass clinked on glass. “To the fucking roads.”

They ended up talking for another couple of hours. Nothing deep, just swapping stories about trade routes and misadventures on the road. Reminiscing about good coffee and tobacco back in California. He didn’t tell her about his head injury, and she wasn’t one to pry. Jude only realised when he looked at his wrist-thinger after four or so beers that he’d missed his date, which turned out to be with Major Knight, one of Cass’ least favourite bureaucratic assholes in this entire bureaucratic asshole outpost, so that doubled her enjoyment of the evening.

The next morning she saw the courier heading off down the road towards the 95, dust whipping up around his heels, and supposed that would be the last she saw of him for a while. Maybe forever.  

*****

**Boone**

Boone sank into the metal chair and arranged Rosie the usual way, propped just right between Dinky’s two front teeth. Eye to the scope for a quick scan. He’d sawn the legs off the chair so it was the perfect height to aim without destroying his spine in the process. Manny was a shade taller than Boone and sometimes complained about back pain, but fuck him. He could get his own chair. Boone had measured properly beforehand, but the floor of the dinosaur’s mouth wasn’t completely even so there was a little wobble in the chair’s back legs. He knew exactly how to lean to balance it perfectly. There wasn’t an inch of this space he didn’t know.

The area was clear, so he reached for the tobacco tin by his feet and took out a moist wad of leaves. He pinched them together into a bullet-sized pellet with his fingertips and wedged it between his back teeth. It sharpened his head a little. His senses had always been sharp, and he guessed they still were—nothing wrong with his eyes—but he needed a little assistance. His thoughts had grown sluggish in the last few months. Didn’t matter how much he slept, how bright the sun was, how much he ate; he always felt tired. Like he could just lay down on the hard ground wherever he was and shut down. It didn’t do his reflexes any favours. The tobacco went a little way toward putting it right.

Eventually he settled into his trance. Manny whined about getting bored on his shift, hence the radio tucked in the corner of Dinky’s mouth, and he would get people to come up and sit shooting the breeze with him, Cliff or Andy or even Dusty McBride. He’d once told Boone that he had a whole host of word games he’d play in his head to keep from going crazy up here. Craig didn’t do any of that. Couldn’t even abide the radio. Sometimes he wondered if that meant he’d already gone crazy. But crazy looked like No-bark, who Boone would sometimes watch wandering barefoot in the dirt, arguing with people nobody else could see and jabbing his knife at shadows. No, Boone’s was an invisible kind of brokenness that kept him sealed up tight like a jar. Nothing in or out. Didn’t sound like crazy to him. Seemed more like dead.

He’d been up there a few hours when he felt the structure around him shift a little. The dinosaur really was like a living thing, and he knew all its habits. How it creaked in a wind from the north versus one from the east. But the slight tilt and shift he felt through his boot soles meant someone was coming up the internal stairs. He sat up just before the door behind him opened.

“Craig, honey, I brought you something to eat.”

He knew it was polite to turn around, so he did. Couldn’t do the smile, though, but the folks around here knew better than to expect one from him. “You didn’t have to do that, Jeannie May.”

“It’s no trouble, you know that.” The woman moved to his side holding a chipped ceramic dish. “It’s beef stew. I saved you some dumplings, too. I know how much you like them.”

_You don’t know the first thing about me_ , he thought, but he’d never say it out loud. She was just a kind lady trying to help out a young fella whose wife had upped and left him. No need to hurt her feelings over things she couldn’t know.

“Thank you, that’s real good of you.” He reached out to take the pot from her hands. She’d brought a spoon, too, wrapped in a napkin. The smell was good, but his stomach didn’t pay much attention. Not much of an appetite these days. A man didn’t burn off a lot of energy sitting like a statue all day long. He would make himself eat it later. Like every good soldier, his days were shaped by routine. Wake up. Work out. Eat. Guard duty. Work out. Eat. Sleep.

Jeannie May hovered around for a few more minutes, chattering about the motel. The tenants, repairs that needed doing; nothing of consequence.

“You let me know if you need help with anything,” Boone said, as he was expected to. She patted his shoulder for a moment before she left. He tried not to flinch. No one had touched him since Carla.

He repositioned Rosalita a quarter of an inch and leaned in, stroking a finger along the notches on her stock, breathing in her scent. They had been through a thing or two together. He was never sure if he loved or hated her more, but they were bound together for better or worse. They had come this far, and when his time came to bow out, it would be with her in his arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Jude**

Later he’d look back on this as a turning point. Not unlike the moment near Shady Sands when he heard the first crack of gunfire and saw Rico slump in his seat on the wagon. Or when a gang led by a douchebag in a checkered jacket stepped out in front of him one night on the road north from Primm. Moments that would repave his path forward forever.

At the time, though, all he could think of was the smell. Burning wood and rubber choked his senses, had his eyes itching and blurring as he turned onto the main street of the town.

There was flesh burning, too. He’d grilled enough gecko and coyote meat on campfires to know the smell, though this was more like the stench that had hit him when he’d chanced upon the wreckage of a ransacked caravan once, the dead charred by laser weapons. Something told him bodies were still burning on the bonfires up ahead. His feet carried him forward though they became heavier with every step.

There were men on the town hall steps. A group of maybe ten, all dressed up in skirts and headgear like god knows what. Jude was dimly aware of who they were; he’d heard the stories like everybody else, but he was struggling to process even simple thoughts with that fucking stink all around him and the dead eyes staring. Crosses. There must have been two dozen people strung up along the sidewalk on either side. In between were the heads of a couple dozen more, impaled on spikes, lining the street like nightmarish streetlamps. No sign of the bodies. Just the smell of burning meat.

Jude stood, looking back and forth along the rows of crosses. He saw weak movement now on some of them. Ribs straining to take in breath, heads too heavy to lift. Some were naked. Others wore the ragged remains of prison uniforms or brahminskin workwear. A man came down the steps ahead of him and started to talk. Jude couldn’t hear him.

He’d heard about crucifixion. They said it could take days to die. In the Mojave sun it would be a coin toss between dehydration and asphyxiation, with every second an agony. He doubted these sorry souls had been up there more than a few hours, but the few still lingering had hold of life by the most fragile of threads.

The guy was still talking. Jude turned to look at him. He was wearing some kind of dark goggles and a dog’s head as a helmet. It struck Jude as so absurd that he wanted to laugh, but nothing came out of his mouth.

“It’s useful that you happened by,” the man was saying. “The fate of Nipton needs a witness. Something tells me you will serve us well.”

“Did you and your friends do all of this?” Jude asked, glancing at the other men behind Dog-goggles. All their eyes were upon him. He was aware that he was probably going to die here, but the thought had no impact.

“Of course,” the man replied. “Nipton was a town of whores. And worse, a town of faithless cowards. For a pittance, its leaders agreed to draw those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realise they were caught inside it, too.”

“Well ain’t you the bigger man,” Jude said. He looked back at the nearest crucifix. The man upon it wore greasy NCR fatigues and dog tags.

“I want you to witness the fate of this town, to memorise every detail.” Goggles sure loved the sound of his own voice. “And then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar’s Legion taught here. Especially any NCR troops you run across.”

“Do you.” Jude stared at the man. With his eyes and head covered, it was hard to get a good sense of what he looked like. “Who’re you again?”

“I am Vulpes Inculta,” the man said, savouring every syllable. “The greatest of Caesar’s Frumentarii.”

Jude nodded. He walked away towards the nearest cross, lowered his pack to the ground and opened it. He had little in the way of medical supplies. There would be no point in using them anyway. What he did have was a spare box of ten mil rounds for his pistol, and enough rifle ammo to cover his trip back to the Outpost, should he live long enough to make it. He held the box of rounds in his hand, feeling its weight. He stood and unholstered his pistol. One of the men on the steps made a noise of alarm, but Goggles hushed him.

Jude raised his pistol, took a couple of steps back, and shot the dying soldier in the head. The sound rang sharply through the blackened air. The shot wasn’t as clean as he’d hoped, hitting the man in the cheekbone rather than between the eyes, but Jude’s hands didn’t feel quite as solid as they should. No doubt that the soldier was dead, though. He moved to the next cross, aimed, and fired. He worked his way down the street, the only thing moving other than the smoke. Then he crossed the road and made his way back up the same way, pausing only to reload between shots.

The dog-headed legionary was waiting for him with a smile on his face. Jude’s pistol was a warm, whispering weight in his hand. It would be too easy. And the last thing he ever did. With great effort, he holstered the gun.

“You still here?”

“Mercy,” the other man said. “Believe me, it amounts to precious little after what they went through. But take your comfort if you want. Just don’t forget what I asked. You are a messenger, are you not?”

Jude narrowed his eyes. These men may be a pack of animals, but they weren’t without their wits. “Something like that.”

“Well then. Let every last Profligate you meet know what awaits them.” With that, he turned and signalled to his men, and they slowly filed away between the buildings.

And then they were gone, leaving Nipton deader than the grave.

*

Messenger.

Jude stood in the doorway of a leaning wooden house and thought about the legionary’s words, or what he could remember of them through the numbness. Thought about the Rangers at the Outpost, too, wondered how thinly stretched their resources and good sense must be if they were prepared to send a courier out to investigate a massacre in exchange for a handful of supplies. Wondered what it said about him that he’d been fool enough to accept.

As a trader, he’d always selected his produce carefully. As a courier, he hadn’t gotten to choose what was in his packages, and he was missing a chunk of his skull as a result. He had a choice this time. The Legion could shove their message up their collective ass. He wrapped a bandanna around his face and set to work.

Hours later, when he was too exhausted to do any more, he went into the house behind him and found a working faucet. He scrubbed his hands raw with a brush and a cracked cake of soap. Then he stripped out of his sweat-sodden clothes and tipped water over his back and chest. For once he was less concerned about the rads than the filth. When he felt clean enough to touch food, he sat on the couch in the living room and ate a can of pork and beans and some snack cakes from his pack.

Evening had sunk down into the town like the ache in his limbs. Sleep tugged at his eyelids, but he couldn’t fall asleep here, and not just because of the things he’d seen. The fires were dying now but they would smoulder through the night. If a wind picked up out of the desert, the whole town could burn. Part of him hoped it would.

He dressed in his sticky clothes and went out onto the street. He stood looking along the lines of dead, now just shapes under blankets. It would take him all night to dig a grave big enough. He didn’t like to leave them out there for the crows and coyotes, but he only had two hands, and they were blistered and numb. Maybe Ranger Jackson would agree to send a few troops this way to finish what he’d started.

*

The night air cleaned the smoke and exhaustion from Jude’s bones. Back at the Outpost he reported a heavily edited version of events back to Ghost and Jackson. Afterwards he had a quick drink with Cass, who was still propping up the bar, then changed his clothes and went looking for Knight. The Major was still on duty.

“I owe you an apology,” he told the man across the desk.

“I’m sure you don’t owe me anything,” Knight replied, his voice friendly but slightly clipped. “I hear you’ve been helping Ranger Jackson out. It’s greatly appreciated.”

Jude leaned on the counter and watched Knight scribble in his ledger. The man’s tone spoke volumes. Yes, he was hurt at being jilted the night before, but his frustration went deeper than that. Jude suspected the Outpost was not quite as unified as the statues towering over it would have folk believe.

“I didn’t mean to stand you up last night. I ran into an old acquaintance. A trader.”

“Who, Cassidy? Her idea of _trade_ is that she gives us shit and we give her whisky.”

Jude was amused by the hint of sass. He reined in a grin. “C’mon. She just lost her livelihood,” he said. “Anyway, I’m not here to talk about Cass.”

“So what are you here for?” Knight tried to conceal his hope behind a businesslike manner, but it wasn’t lost on Jude.

“I had a bad day,” he said. “Guessing you did too. How about we make it better and you let me buy you a drink.”

Knight stopped shuffling his papers around and just stood there for a moment glancing between his desk and Jude.

“Come on,” Jude coaxed, knowing he’d already won the contest. He flashed Knight his most winning smile. “All you do is work.”

Jude’s persistence earned him a very enthusiastic hand-job up against the back wall of the barracks. Knight wouldn’t drink with him in the bar, clearly terrified of being outed to his colleagues, so they’d taken a bottle of brandy outside and passed it back and forth in the shadows like a pair of teenagers. When Jude lit a cigarette, Knight—or Dwain, as he’d bashfully asked Jude to call him—had watched his mouth as though hypnotised the entire time he smoked it. Jude wondered if he’d ever kissed a man before. He certainly wasn’t bad at it, Jude discovered a couple of minutes later when the cigarette was ground out and Jude had reached over to gently cup Knight’s jaw. The man responded with the kind of fire that suggested he’d been keeping that heat under wraps for a very, very long time.

He made Jude pop like a firework, too. Once his knees felt solid again, Jude pressed Knight back into the wall and returned the favour. Dwain clamped his mouth to Jude’s shoulder to keep from moaning aloud, and when he came he bit down hard, pinching the flesh under Jude’s collar. After a day spent with the dead, Jude was glad of the pain. It felt vital, like the hot come on his fingers. Life in the wake of death.


	3. Chapter 3

**Cass**

Cass took off her hat and swatted it through the air, doing little more than stir the heat around her face and neck.

“Remind me again how you talked me into laying on a goddamn roof in the noonday sun?”

Jude adjusted his grip on the rifle and grinned in much the same way he’d grinned when he came up to her in the bar earlier, gestured to her shotgun and said, _You any good with that piece?_

He squinted down the sights. “Here we go,” he muttered.

Cass followed the line of his vision and saw a fat brown body scuttling low in the scrubby grass on the near side of the I-15. A moment later a shot rang out like a thunderclap in the sluggish air. The ant’s body tossed into the air, twisted and landed on its back. It wasn’t dead, though, not yet. Legs and mandibles scrabbled, sending up dust as the bug flipped itself over. Movement further away caught Cass’s eye; more were coming, drawn by its distress.

“Ah, crap,” Jude said.

Cass raised her own gun and aimed down over the lip of the roof. Her shotgun wasn’t much use at range, so she let Jude pick off the ants further out on the broken lanes of the highway while she finished off any that came near. The ruckus had drawn out a few radscorpions too, and for a few minutes she and Jude forgot the heat, too focused on thinning out the numbers of critters swarming below. During a lull in the action, they caught each other’s eye while reloading.

“This is fun,” Jude said, that stupid grin still on his face.

“Yeah, well, anyone whose definition of fun includes Major Knight needs their head examining.”

Jude gave a deep, throaty laugh. “The more buttoned up they are, the more fun they can be once the buttons come undone,” he said.

“All right, keep it to yourself,” she huffed. “And don’t presume you’re the only one knows how to unbutton a man.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jude chuckled. “I get the feeling Sergeant Kilborn may know a little about your unbuttoning skills.”

“Fuck off.” Bastard didn’t miss a thing. Cass snapped her shotgun barrel closed. The rest stop forecourt below them was an ugly mess of broken bodies, oozing fluids that were already starting to stink in the glare of the sun. “Think this’ll actually do any good? There’s only gonna be more where these came from.”

“I figure we clear out what we can from up here, then hit the ones in the underpass. This many ants means there’s a nest nearby. Maybe we can find it and close it up.”

“With what, good intentions?”

“I made sure to get a little something extra from our friends at the Outpost,” Jude said with a glint in his eye. He reached for his pack and took out a roll of grubby cloth. He peeled back a corner to reveal two sticks of dynamite. “How’s that for a good intention?”

Cass whistled. “You’ve been at the Outpost five minutes and they’re handing you candy. I’ll say this for you, Courier: you’re a born trader.”

A couple more ants were scuttling toward them across the road below. Jude picked off the one furthest away while Cass crippled the front leg of the nearer one, then blew its head clean off with a second shot.

“You ever thought about signing on with Crimson Caravans?” she asked him as she reloaded yet again. “They’re one of the only companies still expanding in the Mojave. Should be plenty of work for someone of your experience.”

Jude shook his head. “Nah, I did my time with them a long time ago,” he said. “That’s where I got started back West. Made myself a little unpopular, truth be told. Never much fancied the thought of going back and admitting I failed. Anyway, I was due a change. It’s not so bad being a courier.”

“When you’re not getting shot in the head.” Cass eyed the bandage at his hairline, barely visible under the brim of his hat. She was no fool. Rumours travelled slower when trade routes were closed, but they never dried up entirely. Bored soldiers were just as inclined to gossip as traders, and Cass’ bar stool was a handy perch from which to hear the other little birds sing. There had been a few whispers about this guy in the last couple of days. Stories blown down from Goodsprings. Primm.

Jude just smiled. “That is the downside,” he said. “How about you? Think you might get work with Crimson?”

“I might.” She thought about her own rig, and spat off the edge of the roof. “One of these days.”

After a scan of the area, they clambered down from the roof of the rest stop. Cass staggered gladly into the shade, shaking her stiff limbs back into shape. Her spine was a river of sweat under her jacket. They shared a bottle of water before wandering down toward the underpass.

“Last I heard, couriers didn’t work as NCR scouts or exterminators.”

He shrugged. “Having the routes paralysed doesn’t help any of us. May as well lend a hand if I want to get back out on the road. Plus it never hurts to be on the NCR’s good side.”

The ants in the old underpass didn’t take them too long to clear, and sure enough they found a nest not far from the road. Cass watched with her shotgun ready while Jude climbed up the mound and tossed a lit stick of dynamite into the opening before beating a hasty retreat. The noise and the cloud of dust sent up by the explosion had them both whooping and grinning like kids with their first firecrackers.

“You know a place called Novac?” he asked as they started back to the road.

“Yeah. Little town with a big fucking dinosaur.” She squinted at him. “Why, you headed that way?”

“Yeah. Last I heard, my friend Benny was headed out that way.”

“Benny wouldn’t happen to be the fella who gave you that new haircut, would he?”

“The very same.”

As they started to ascend the hill to the Outpost, she felt Jude looking at her. “How about you?” he asked. “What’s next in line for Miss Rose of Sharon Cassidy?”

She shrugged. “Well, I’m pretty sure there’s still whisky left in that bar. I consider it my duty to liberate it.”

Jude looked at her, and she could tell from his smile that he was coming up with some new and creative way to get between her and her next drink. He stopped walking.

“Why don’t you come with me,” he said.

She stopped too. “Come with you.”

“Yeah. Travel with me. You know how to handle yourself, and it’s safer on the road in pairs. I’d appreciate the company.”

“Shit, Courier, no offence, but if you’ve got people looking to shoot you in the head, you’re not the kind of company I need.”

“He thinks I’m dead already. Besides, I wouldn’t involve you in any of that. This business with Benny is my mess to clean up. But I’d sure enjoy some conversation on my way to hell.” That damn cocky grin.

Cass looked off along the road, shaking her head. He was entertaining company, sure, and this little bug hunt had been an interesting diversion from the slow crushing boredom of the Outpost. She was covered in dust and sweat and felt disgusting, but also lighter than she had in a long while. What did she have here? A caravan company that only existed on paper. A bar stool that was getting worn into the shape of her ass. Kilborn’s sad eyes on her as he hoped in vain for a repeat of their one-time fumble in the bathroom. But Jude was likely more trouble than he was worth.

“You’re assuming Jackson would even clear me to leave.”

“I reckon we can take care of Ranger Jackson. He owes us one.” He watched her for a moment with shrewd eyes and an easy smile. “We can look for your rig.”

Son of a bitch. She didn’t have a quick answer for that. “What good that’ll do me,” she muttered.

“Might tell you something about what happened to it,” he said. “You happy to leave it out there to rot, never knowing for sure?”

Cass sighed and brushed dust off the end of her nose. She set off walking again. “Are you sweet on me, Courier?”

*

**Arcade**

“There’d be too much damage to the cortex.” Hernandez moved a bishop into position and sat back in his chair. “Even if they lived, they’d lose too much brain functionality.”

Arcade drummed his fingers on the table and scanned the board. “I agree that’s probable, but not certain. Brain plasticity is a remarkable thing.”

“In infants, maybe. But you wouldn’t see recovery like that in a grown man. And definitely not that fast.”

Arcade reached for one of his pawns, then pulled his hand back with a frown. After a moment’s hesitation he hopped his knight forward instead, claiming Hernandez’ bishop. “There’s a case in one of the old texts. Mid-nineteenth century. A man survived and regained most of his functions after a tamping iron completely pierced his frontal lobe.”

The other doctor smirked at him. “I read that chapter too, Gannon. And as I recall, his behaviour rapidly deteriorated after the injury. He didn’t become some selfless hero figure. Quite the opposite.” He slid his rook sideways to take Arcade’s knight.

Arcade scowled. “Fair enough, but that’s because the frontal cortex was damaged. You’d expect to see a loss of inhibition. But what if the lesions affected a different region? The temporal lobe, for instance. You may be looking at aphasia or amnesia, but that wouldn’t necessarily prevent a person from doing those things.”

He swatted a moth away from the board, and it fluttered back up to flicker around the lamp suspended above their heads. A moment later a light evening breeze ruffled his hair as someone entered the tent. It was Julie, who nodded to the men before crossing to the little kitchen area.

“That’s not even my main issue with the story,” Hernandez countered, gesturing with his beer bottle. “It’s just too messy. You know how difficult it is for us to fight infection even in the most straightforward injuries. Treating infection in the brain is another matter entirely.” He shook his head. “Even if—and it’s a _big_ if—you could successfully remove all the shrapnel, I just don’t believe that he’d survive surgery. Our current equipment is too primitive.”

“It wasn’t done with our equipment,” Arcade replied. “As for primitive medical techniques, I have one word for you. _Trepanning_.” He moved his queen into position. “And that’s check mate, by the way.”

Hernandez ran his eyes over the chess board and frowned. “Damn it.”

“What do you think, Julie?” Arcade turned to face his boss, who was heating water over the portable stove. “In your medical opinion, could someone survive a gunshot to the head?”

“Of course they could, if you had the right skills, equipment and drugs,” she said. She didn’t meet his eye. “But Javi’s right, we don’t. And I’d be very surprised if a lone medic down in Goodsprings does.”

Arcade could have told them a thing or two about a lone medic up in Jacobstown who knew his way around the inside of a cranium, but winning this argument wasn’t worth the risk.

He smiled. “So you have been listening to the news.”

Julie emptied a packet of powdered macaroni cheese into the pan. “I’ve heard _gossip_ ,” she retorted. “Hardly the same thing.”

“Speaking of which,” Hernandez said, and leaned over to the shelf to turn up the radio. They had turned the set down to a murmur while they played chess, but it was about time for a news update.

Arcade and Hernandez sat in conspiratorial silence as the smooth tones of Mr New Vegas rolled over them, recounting the latest on the current hot topic: the massacre in Nipton. There was a disconcerting rumour that Caesar’s Legion had eradicated the townsfolk. Sceptics, including Rangers from the nearby Mojave Outpost, argued that there was no evidence of a Legion presence and the dead had fallen in a skirmish between locals and Powder Gangers. And one almost certainly crazy person claiming to be the sole survivor insisted that he’d seen a lone figure in dark armour and hat enter the town.

Hernandez shook his head. “They’re really desperate to work this courier character into everything, aren’t they?”

The voice on the radio perked up for the next story. “In more upbeat news, the Long 15 between Primm and the Mojave Outpost is once again open for business after an infestation of ants was cleaned up,” he informed his rapt audience. “Confidential sources inform us that a certain _independent contractor_ took on the grisly job. Could it be that our courier friend has taken to delivering a little whoop-ass along with the mail?”

Arcade had to laugh. “Desperate indeed.” He hated to admit it even to himself, but he was disappointed. He still believed in the values of the Followers, but seeing how hard life was day after day had eroded his hope. It would have been nice to have something out there to rekindle it.

Julie joined them at the table with her dinner. “It’s a fairy tale,” she said. “People have lost faith in the NCR, and they want someone else to save them.” Arcade deflated a little more.

“It’s understandable,” Hernandez said with a shrug.

“Understandable, but not helpful. We need to start saving ourselves instead of waiting for a hero to do it.” She cast a glance at Arcade. “Escapism doesn’t help anyone.”

The news ended and Hernandez got to his feet. “A few of us are thinking of hitting up the Wrangler tomorrow night,” he said as he slid his lab coat back on. “You two in?”

“I can’t,” Julie replied. “I’m on duty late. But thanks.”

Arcade gave Hernandez a tight smile. “I’m, uh, on late too.”

“All right. Don’t work too hard.” Hernandez disappeared to check in on his patients before turning in for the night. Arcade sat and lined the chess pieces up neatly on the board while Julie ate.

“People will start to think we’re carrying on together,” he quipped. There was still an almost palpable tension between them, but he was determined not to be the one who avoided it.

Julie didn’t smile. “You could go.”

Arcade picked at the label on his soda bottle. He replied quietly. “Could I?”

She sighed. “You’re not a prisoner, Arcade.”

She had been trying to trust him more. She’d even agreed to his request to head to the sharecropper farms to ask for NCR assistance in growing the plants they needed, albeit with Beatrix Russell in tow to keep an eye on things. The trip hadn’t done any good. The farmers there were too worried about issues with their own water supply to offer the Followers any help. Arcade wasn’t much of a diplomat, so he’d returned empty handed and heavy of heart. Still, if there was a silver lining, it was that he’d regained a little of Julie’s trust.

“I know,” he said, and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before he left.


	4. Chapter 4

**Cass**

She would have expected to feel worse than she did about killing Cassidy Caravans. Sure, there had been a moment just after she’d held a lit match to one corner of the title deed that her chest hurt something awful. She wasn’t only torching her own life’s work, but the only good part of her father’s legacy, and one of the few things her momma had still cared about after Dad walked away with the rest. But it had also been a relief. Like a cell door swinging open.

Despite her help clearing up the I-15, Ranger Jackson still wasn’t letting merchants head east because of what had happened in Nipton. Not even a merchant with no caravan or stock. Jude had been mid-flow, using that silver tongue of his to try and convince the Ranger otherwise, when Cass’ last drop of patience had evaporated. On a whim she’d pulled out the papers and burned them right there on the front desk in Major Knight’s ashtray. Then she’d turned to the Courier, who was almost as startled as Jackson, and told him it was time to go.

No point regretting it now. Cassidy Caravans had died the moment someone took out her rig. Her staff and her brahmin were gone and couldn’t be replaced. Starting again was impossible without caps, and she couldn’t earn caps while she was gathering dust at the Outpost. Time to lay it to rest and walk away.

And walk they had. All day long, first east along Nipton highway then north onto the 95, with an aim to arrive in Novac in time to spend the night there. Where they headed after that would depend on whatever dirt Jude could dish up on his old pal Benny. Cass stretched out her stiff legs in front of her as she leaned against the wall of the little farmhouse. She’d gotten out of shape sitting on her ass for so long. Aches aside, it felt good to be moving again.

She glanced over at Jude, who was poking a fork into the pot on the fire. Her stomach growled in anticipation. He heard it and laughed.

“Couple more minutes.”

“Thank Christ for that.”

Thank Christ for this place, a little abandoned homestead up on a hill where they’d found canned food, a water tank, and—best of all—fresh corn growing in the little field downhill from the house. To her relief, Jude had no hesitation about them helping themselves. It had been a different story when they’d passed through the burned-out shell of Nipton that morning and Jude had flat out refused to stop and scavenge. By Cass’ reasoning, the townsfolk didn’t need their produce any more, and raiders would take it soon enough, so they may as well get to it first. Still he’d grimly insisted. Fine, she’d told him, but with few provisions in their packs, fewer caps in their pockets and no merchants on this stretch of the highway, he’d better find a moral loophole before she decided to re-evaluate her stance on cannibalism.

“We can scavenge,” he’d promised her. “Just not here.” And that was all he’d say on the matter.

She was more inclined to forgive him now as she tucked into steaming hot corn on the cob, sprinkled with salt. He’d even made a pack of InstaMash bearable by frying it up with chunks of Cram. She mumbled her approval around a piled forkful.

“Just wait ’til I get hold of some fresh potatoes,” Jude told her between bites. “Onions. Carrots. Ground brahmin meat. I’ll make you the best damn stew you ever had.”

“Sweet talker.”

“You don’t cook?”

She shrugged. “I can kill it and skin it, but Jesse always took care of the rest.” She read his enquiring glance and added, “My guard.”

They sat for a while, picking corn from between their teeth and admiring the view out toward the Colorado. Then Jude put out the fire and rinsed the dishes while Cass filled their canteens, lopped off a few more heads of maize and packed them along with their other spoils into their packs.

A few miles further on, they caught up with a caravan heading north. It was a small unit with little in the way of stock. Cass and Jude were short on money—the caps Ranger Jackson had paid them for the bug hunt had barely been enough to cover the ammo they’d used—but nevertheless they managed to exchange some of the odds and ends they had for gun oil, a dose of RadAway and some duct tape. Jude’s right boot was cracking along the heel and he needed to hold it together at least long enough to reach Novac. He sat on the edge of the broken highway, chatting with the merchant while he fixed his boot. Cass shared a cigarette with one of the guards and scratched the brahmin under both her bristled chins.

“Can’t believe I actually missed the smell of these big mothers,” she said.

The guard smiled and patted the beast’s side. “Zelda’s a good girl. Been with us near enough five years.”

Cass opened her mouth to say something about her old girl, Nellie, but a sudden splash of warmth across her face froze the words in place. She tasted blood before she even registered the sight of the guard falling forward, a spear through his throat.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” She staggered back before he could collide with her, dropped to her knees behind the brahmin and grabbed the shotgun off her back. She heard a shriek from the merchant and an explosion of sound as the second guard fired his repeater. “Courier! You there?”

“I’m here,” Jude hollered. She couldn’t see him. She heard his rifle ring out a moment later. One shot. Two. The startled brahmin wailed and stamped above her.

“Mother _fuck_ ,” Cass muttered, shuffling out of reach of trampling hooves. If the brahmin got hit, she didn’t want to be flattened as it fell. That didn’t leave her with much cover. More shots tore through the air. Another spear splintered as it struck tarmac a few feet away. She dropped flat to the ground and rolled the dead guard onto his side, stretching her body alongside his. She propped her shotgun over his armoured side and aimed down the road back the way they came. One dead legionary on the ground already, bare legs spattered red. She spotted movement in the weeds off the road. The flash of a muzzle. Further left, the glint of sunlight off a long blade. Cass fired into the bushes, knowing she had no chance of a hit but offering some cover for Jude and the others.

“Courier!” she yelled again. No reply. “Goddammit, Jude, where you at?”

She unloaded her shotgun again, then tossed it aside. No point trying to reload in this position. Instead she reached into the dead guard’s holster for his sidearm and quickly checked the cylinder. Five full chambers. She snapped it shut and trained the revolver on the undergrowth.

The second guard had moved out of her line of sight and was no longer shooting. All she could hear of the merchant was panting sobs somewhere behind her. Jude was nowhere to be seen. _Fuck_. She caught a flash of movement as a masked figure dashed from one patch of long grass to another, and she squeezed off two rapid shots. The man fell, but she couldn’t be sure if he’d dived or been hit. Silence fell for a few long seconds that stretched to a lifetime. She was about to call out again when she heard feet pounding asphalt. A legionary in a feathered helmet was pelting towards her, swinging his arm back ready to throw his axe. She fired and struck him in the shoulder. At that exact moment, a figure rose out of the bushes and unloaded a shot into the man’s head. It was weirdly graceful the way his body twisted backward and sideways at once, blood arcing through the air from his ruined skull. He landed with a crunch.

Cass sank down onto the ground with a sigh as Jude headed for her, only now becoming aware of how hard and fast her heart was beating. She reminded herself that she wasn’t dying. It was just the adrenaline.

“Sweet mother o’ Jesus, Cass, are you all right?” Jude squatted beside her looking horrified. She noticed he still had only one boot on. He reached for her face and Cass remembered that she was sprayed with another man’s blood. Fuck, it was in her mouth.

She sat up and spat on the ground. “I’m just swell,” she mumbled. “I’m not hit.”

The merchant was hunched over on the ground crying, a pistol cradled in her hands. “It jammed on me,” she said. “It fucking jammed on me.” She flung the gun into the weeds by the edge of the road in disgust. She looked over at the body of her guard, and her face creased up again. “Oh god, Marty.”

The second guard, Gus, was alive but had taken a bullet to the elbow. The trader’s name was Molly, and she and Cass got the poor bastard wrapped up the best they could while Jude went to check over the bodies of the legionaries. No one had any Med-X, so Cass gave Gus a hefty gulp of whisky to make the pain more bearable. She glanced at Molly’s strained face and gave her a hit too. There was nothing to be done for poor old Marty but try to get his body home, so they wrapped him in Gus’ overcoat and hefted him over Zelda’s back.

Cass and Jude stayed with the caravan as it headed north. That meant moving at the brahmin’s pace, which slowed them down considerably, but they couldn’t leave the merchant struggling out here with a spooked brahmin and an injured guard. They wouldn’t arrive in Novac until after nightfall. All they could do was hope for a cloudless night and a fat moon to help them along.

 

**Jude**

He was cursed, and the Mojave was determined to kill him or drive him mad. It had not yet succeeded by gunshot, fire, poison or spear. But it would no doubt continue to try. And right now its weapon of choice was human stupidity.

“This is brahminshit,” Jude muttered, loud enough for only Cass to hear. His chair squealed as he leaned back and rubbed a hand over his forehead. He glanced at the hard-faced woman standing in the doorway, then back at the man flipping through papers at the desk. Jude’s sidearm sat holstered on the desk where he had placed it after being asked, politely yet firmly, to offer it for inspection. His tattered Mojave Express ID lay next to it.

Nevada hadn’t been like this when he last passed through, the best part of a decade ago. Back in the days before Red Rover. Before Rico and Gloria and the Gunnarsens. The region had still been a frontier, much wilder than the Republic, and his rifle had seen plenty of action as he rode on a Happy Trails wagon back southwest from Utah. Mostly geckos and coyotes, but there were tribes, too, and few of them friendly. In those days the NCR had barely dipped its first tentative toe into the Mojave, and even the Strip had yet to open up its shining eyes to the night.

Still, wild as it had been back then, the Mojave hadn’t felt like it did now. Sick. Tired. Wrung out. Like the land itself was tainted with more than radiation.

Or maybe that was just his foul mood talking.

He glanced sideways at Cass. She looked resigned; bored, even. He wondered if she was plotting his death behind that weary expression. What a fine day he’d shown her. As if their brush with death on the highway wasn’t enough, she’d sent her caravan up in flames that morning to get free of one bunch of NCR stuffed shirts, only to end the day sitting in front of another one. After the long limp north, they’d almost had Novac in sight when the Rangers had halted them on the old railroad and stiffly invited them into the station for a chat. Wasn’t much they could do but oblige.

He’d generally had a good relationship with the NCR back on their home turf. The only trouble he'd been in with them in recent memory was that one night he’d been arrested in Junktown for public indecency and, well, everyone had managed to see the funny side of that in the end.

Being obliquely accused of murder was a new experience.

“You’re saying there were a dozen of them?” the Ranger behind the desk asked him without looking up.

“About ten or twelve, yes, sir.”

“None of our troops reported a Legion contingent that size on the 95 that day,” Ranger Stepinac said, looking up from his reports. “They usually raid in groups of three or four.”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware. We met a small group like that just hours ago. But Nipton was not your standard raiding party. And if they didn’t come this way, I’m guessing they headed back toward the Colorado.”

Stepinac made a non-committal noise. He put down his papers and looked at Jude with a weariness that suggested he was just as sick of the Mojave as Jude was. “It would still seem Ranger Jackson has some valid concerns about you,” he said.

Fucking Jackson. Next time they were in the vicinity of the Mojave Outpost, Jude was going to acquaint the Ranger with the taste of his boot heel. While he was still wearing it.

“What we appear to be left with is this: Everyone in Nipton is dead and you’re the only witness. Now I don’t imagine anyone’s claiming that you slaughtered an entire township. However, some of them were found shot with a ten millimetre pistol, just like this one. Help me make sense of that, if you will.”

“I’ll gladly explain everything, Ranger Stepinac, sir,” he began. “But first of all, I want to point out that Miss Cassidy here wasn’t involved in anything that happened that day. She was back at the Outpost barracks. Anyone there can vouch for that. In fact, I’d really appreciate it if you let her leave now. This doesn’t concern her.”

Cass reached out and smacked his arm. “He stays, I stay,” she told Stepinac. Jude shot a glare in her direction, which she ignored.

Jude let out a sigh. “Those fires were burning before I set foot anywhere near Nipton,” he said. “That’s how the Outpost knew there was trouble. Ranger Ghost sent me to scout it out. I got there just in time to see the legionaries clearing out. It was already too late for the townsfolk.”

“Do you deny using your weapon?”

“No sir, I don’t.” Cass cursed under her breath and leaned into her hand. “Those people had been crucified,” he went on. “Most of them were already dead. I didn’t see why the ones who weren’t should suffer any more.”

Stepinac leaned back and folded his hands across the slight bulge of his belly. “The victims were found in the street. No one said anything about crosses.”

“No sir, that’s because I cut the bodies down. I took the crosses down too, and burned them.”

“Why?”

Jude breathed carefully, pushing down the anger that spiked in him. He hoped the Ranger didn’t notice the tightness around his eyes. “Seemed the respectful thing to do.”

“Well, it didn’t much help Ranger Jackson’s investigation.”

He had to choke back a snort. Jackson couldn’t investigate his own ass with both hands and an instruction manual. Nipton was days ago. He would have bet that the only reason Jackson had been on the radio to Ranger Station Charlie now was that some Colonel or other had gotten wind of the massacre and demanded answers. Jackson had to point a finger to prove he was doing something about Nipton, and a lone courier made an easier target than Caesar’s Legion.

“No, I guess it didn’t,” he said. “That wasn’t really first thing on my mind.”

“All right, but even so, why keep it to yourself? If you saw who did this, you should have reported it to the Outpost immediately, particularly if you were sent to scout the location.”

Jude had to admit that did look rather bad. For all anyone else knew he could be crying wolf. It just so happened that this particular wolf was real. Jude had seen it huff and puff and blow Nipton down. He even had proof. He just couldn’t bear to use it. Sweat prickled his skin under the Pip-Boy.

“The Legion usually take slaves,” Stepinac went on. “Women and children in particular. But this was an all-out massacre. That doesn’t sound like their usual. Unless of course they _did_ take slaves. In which case, your silence may have been even more damaging.”

_A town of whores_. Jude could play back those very words and explain everything. But he’d already been forced to break his silence thanks to Jackson’s ineptitude. He refused to deliver the wolf’s full message unless he had no other choice.

“They didn’t take any slaves,” he replied. “They left alone.”

Stepinac watched him. Jude couldn’t tell if he’d convinced him or not. He was fairly sure the Ranger didn’t think him a murderer, but his story wasn’t doing him any favours. Usually he brought out the charm when he was in deep shit like this, flattered and cajoled and flirted where necessary. But having this particular dirty laundry dragged back out had taken the wind from his sails.

To his surprise, Cass spoke next. “Mind if I say something?” Stepinac nodded. Cass jabbed her thumb at Jude. “This guy’s a courier. He delivers mail. If he was a good enough shot to single-handedly take on half the population of Nipton, don’t you think he’d be in a better paid job? The man has a goddamn brain injury, for Christ’s sake.”

Jude didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They’d either think him an idiot or a psychopath. She really was something else. But he kept his face straight, and touched a finger to his scarred head. Just the faintest wince of pain for effect.

“Ranger Stepinac, sir,” he said. “I probably didn’t do the smartest thing that day. But I don’t have the training you folks do. I was shaken up by what I saw. But I’m sure that there is someone back at the Outpost much smarter than I am who can look over those bodies and tell you whether or not they were crucified.”

Ranger Stepinac looked between the two of them for a long minute. Then he spoke to his associate. “Stella, would you mind keeping our guests company outside while I put in a call to the Outpost?”

*

“We are getting _drunk_ tonight,” Jude announced grimly as they finally put Ranger Station Charlie behind them.

“Halle-fuckin’-lujah.”

“Novac better have a decent bar.”

“Not that I recall, but then again, if you can brown-nose your way out of getting arrested by Rangers, I reckon you can talk your way into a bottle or two of sauce.”

Jude grimaced. “I feel so violated. I swear, if I’m ever in the vicinity of the Outpost again, I’m making Jackson eat his own fucking moustache.” They walked along the road a little way before he leaned in and said, “Bet you never thought you’d be grateful to Major Knight.”

“My god. You must give one hell of a blow job to command that kind of loyalty.”

“Hand job. And while I’d love to say it was all thanks to my magic digits, I can’t. It’s obvious him and Jackson hate each other.”

Cass was quiet for a minute before she asked him what he knew she would. “So was it all true?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t understand you, Courier,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Why _didn’t_ you just tell Jackson in the first place?”

Jude didn’t answer her right away. He glanced at his new companion. She had no duty to him, but she’d sat there beside him regardless. He figured that made her a keeper. “’Cause that’s what he wanted me to do.”

“What who wanted?”

Another pause. “I’ll tell you when we get that drink.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Boone**

The ruckus started a couple of hours into his night shift. Some sort of party going on down in the motel courtyard. He’d heard them warming up down the street in the mess tent earlier, music and laughter drifting on the night air. Sound travelled easy out here at night. Boone had ignored it at first, but then some genius had decided to drag everyone back to the Dino Dee-Lite. He should have been used to it by now; every couple of weeks some band of thirsty travellers, either merchants or an NCR troop, would wander through and get stinking drunk out of sheer relief at reaching the town after days on the highway. These days the 95 was one long strip of hell leading from bad to worse. Novac seemed like an oasis in the middle.

Boone didn’t much concern himself with other people’s business. But after a while the noise was too distracting. He peered out between Dinky’s back teeth. From here he could see the courtyard and the far end of the motel balcony. There was a sizeable group gathered around the brick fire pit in the middle of the yard. A few of the townsfolk were there; Andy and Cliff and Miss Whitman that he could see. Strangers, too. A thin woman in a straw hat sat in a folding chair, legs sprawled out in front of her like a man’s. A bottle passed back and forth between her and her neighbour, a bulky man in metal armour, his arm trussed up in a sling. Another woman sat huddled in a blanket near the injured man’s feet. She cradled a mug in her hands and stared at the fire.

Everyone else was watching dark-haired man who stood with his back to Boone, silhouetted against the fire, talking animatedly and waving his arms as he re-enacted some story. His laugh rang out long and loud. The others laughed with him. Boone couldn’t hear all of what he was saying, but there was talk of a Mr Handy and a town mayor and heavy use of the word _malfunction_. When he was done, someone passed him a drink and he sat down on the low bench behind him. The guy to his right slapped him on the back and let his hand linger there. Boone frowned as he recognised Manny’s beret. The stranger slid a hand along Manny’s thigh.

Boone turned his attention back to the road. A little while later the singing started. Merchants did just love to sing. And after sinking a few beers, they all seemed to love singing loud. These folk were no different. Alice McBride took the opportunity to get her fiddle, and soon they were all clapping along and belting out every number she played. The woman in the straw hat had just about the worst singing voice Boone had ever heard. The loud man wasn’t much better. At least they all hushed up when Bruce Isaac came out and started to sing _Moonlight Serenade_. When Boone next glanced down, a few of them were dancing.

It hurt a little to see them. This was the sort of gathering he’d imagined when he first moved Carla out here. Sharing food and drink with neighbours. Welcoming travellers. The warmth of community spirit. That had never quite happened, though. Instead, someone in that courtyard had stolen everything from him.

At long last he thought the crowd had dispersed for the night, and he settled in over Rosalita waiting for the stillness to descend. It never came. The door behind him banged open and stifled laughter prickled the back of his neck.

“Boone,” Manny slurred. “Want you to meet a friend. This here’s Jude.”

Boone sat up, but didn’t turn. “I’m working.”

“I _know_ you are,” Manny said. His voice got whiny when he was trying to impress someone. “I wanted to show him Dinky.”

“Dinky sure is a sight to behold,” a second voice remarked. “Although I feel a little bad making fun of his size like that.”

It wasn’t even funny, but Manny cracked up. His laughter muffled as though his mouth was up against someone’s skin. Boone hoped they’d go get a room and leave him in peace before he had to use Rosie to convince them.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr Boone.”

He turned to look at the newcomer at last. A man around Boone’s age, maybe a few years older. Definitely a trader of some kind. The piecemeal leather armour told Boone as much, and he had that leanness and colour to his skin that came from trekking long distances in the sun. Soldiers were built different. The contraption on his wrist stood out as unusual. The guy tipped his hat, then set it back a little askew on his head. His cheeks were pink from liquor and he had a big easy smile, the kind Boone could never pull off even if he tried, which he didn’t.

“Hey Craig. Jude hates Legion almost as much as we do.”

Boone seriously doubted that.

“You see much action along this road?” the other man asked in a casual tone. “Manny tells me it’s mostly mutts and ghouls, but you’re seeing more Legion lately.”

“That’s right.”

“You see ’em often at night?”

“See what?”

“Legion.” The tone not so casual now. Boone looked at him. Jude was still smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“We see ’em all times,” Manny chirped up. “We gotta be ever viligant. I mean, vigilant.” Jude laughed at him. “Fuck you man, I’m drunk.”

“So am I,” Jude chuckled. “So how about you go find that coffee you promised, and sober me up a little. Otherwise I’ll be no use to either of us.”

Manny leaned close to him and mumbled something that was certainly not intended for Boone’s ears.

“I’ll be right down,” Jude replied.

“You want something?” Boone asked when Manny was gone. Nobody had ever delayed getting laid in favour of talking to him.

The guy leaned against Dinky’s jaw and looked out at the highway. “Just wondering if you know much about them. Caesar’s Legion.”

Boone grunted. “I know enough to enjoy killing them.”

“Yeah,” the guy sighed. “That’s about all I know.” He was quiet a little while, his cigarette smoke drifting in the night air. “You ever see one wearing like a...” He gestured in a vague circle around his face. “A dog’s pelt. On his head.”

“Maybe.”

“Know what it means?”

“Means they like to skin things.”

Jude grinned. “Not much of a talker, are you. I bet you can’t stand guys like me who love the sound of their own voice.”

“I don’t know you,” Boone said. “Don’t have an opinion about you.”

The guy straightened up and wavered on his feet a little. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. I was just curious about the dinosaur. I’ll leave you in peace.” He hesitated for a moment. “Would you mind if we continued this conversation tomorrow?”

“What for?”

Jude shrugged. “I’ll be heading north from here. Sounds likely I’ll meet more of those fuckers when I do. Just wanna find out what I can.”

“They ain’t bulletproof,” Boone said. “That’s about all you need to know.”

“That’s a start,” the man replied. “You have a good night, Mr Boone.” The door closed more softly as he left.

*

**Cass**

It was a rare luxury indeed to wake up late. Even rarer to wake up late in a real bed with clean blankets in a private room. Cass rolled onto her back and groaned. Her back felt like sponge and her legs like iron. Yesterday’s walk had been punishing. She’d need to work out the tension before they set off again. There was a bathtub in the next room, but she doubted there was hot water to fill it.

Aches aside, she felt okay. Thirsty as hell, and a mole rat had apparently shit in her mouth during the night, but she hadn’t slept that well in months. Even with Gus in the next bed snoring steadily. She reached around on the nightstand for her water flask and her knuckles hit glass. She fumbled for the bottle, brought it down to her face and cracked an eyelid. Whisky, almost empty. Fair enough. She lifted her head from the pillow just enough to tip back the last of it.

She lay there a while longer until her bladder could no longer be ignored. She passed by the foot of the other bed where Gus lay on his back, his busted arm bent across his chest above the covers. Cass vaguely remembered half-waking once when he’d cried out in pain. Molly must have dosed him up again. While Jude and Cass had been enduring their tedious diversion at the Ranger station, the trader and guard had come on ahead to Novac and found a travelling medic who’d fixed Gus up a little better. When he’d greeted Cass later, his pupils were huge black holes and his speech was so slippery from Med-X that she’d doubted he could even feel his face, never mind his elbow. But he would need a real doctor soon if he was going to keep the arm.

She took a piss in the gloomy bathroom, then washed in a trickle of water. Dressed in her least dusty clothes. The shirt she’d worn yesterday still had bloodstains on the shoulder like big red exclamation points. Marty, the poor bastard. She hoped Jesse had gone down as quick and painless when her rig was hit. She filled the basin and put the shirt and her used underwear in to soak while she went outside.

Molly was in a shaded corner of the motel courtyard tending to her brahmin. She looked grey and worn as she dragged the bucket of feed over so Zelda could dip her second snout into it. She had hoped to graze her animal in the little farmstead up the road with the owner’s herd, but by the sounds of it the McBrides were having livestock issues of their own and didn’t think it safe. Something about brahmin being mutilated in the dead of night. Cass patted Zelda’s patchy pelt and scratched her ears while they chatted. She watched the other woman’s face, seeing every familiar fear there. Molly’s caravan had been struggling before the attack and was down to its bare bones now. She couldn’t move without a guard, and when you couldn’t move, you drowned. Cass knew that only too well.

“Lemme talk to Jude,” she said. “We’ll figure out somewhere to take him.”

There was an unspoken code among traders that had existed since long before their time. They were cut-throat when it came to commerce, but in all other matters, merchants watched each other’s backs. Cass could no more walk away from this woman’s predicament than she could her own. Likewise, knowing that Cass and Jude were almost out of caps, Molly had insisted on giving them a room for the night. Although, as it turned out, Jude had found other hospitality.

As if on cue Cass looked over to see the courier emerging from a downstairs room with his coat and hat in one hand and his boots in the other. His hair was a wreck and he moved stiffly. She could almost smell his hangover.

“Morning, Courier!” she called brightly.

Jude flinched and dropped his boots. He squinted over at her and Molly. “Morning yourself,” he mumbled around an unlit cigarette. “You coming to find some breakfast?”

“Man, you look like hammered shit,” she told him when she got closer.

“You are a mean-spirited person, anyone ever tell you that?”

“Every day of my life.”

They wandered up to the service tent by the end of the highway where they pooled their last caps to buy coffee and some excellent beef sausage served with beans and cornbread. They sat down to eat at the same table where they’d started drinking the night before.

What a night it had been. At first she and Jude had thought they must have died and gone to hell when the first things they’d spotted on the main road through Novac were a Ranger hat and a red beret. Fortunately both men were retired. The Ranger had proven to be a kind old gent who’d even sympathised when Jude shared the events of their evening (“NCR’s stretched tighter than a supermutant’s foreskin out here, and that makes for poor decisions,” Andy had said), and the red beret, while a little on the shy side at first, had looked Jude over like he was a mouth-watering steak. Lucky for the courier, and lucky for Cass too since she only had to bunk up with one snoring man instead of two.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Think you took _Fuck the NCR_ too literally, huh?”

“Hey,” Jude grumbled. “He’s not NCR any more.”

“Sure he ain’t. So, when your mouth wasn’t otherwise engaged, did you manage to find anything out about Benny?”

“As a matter of fact I did. He came through here a while back. Manny knows the guys who were with him.”

“Wait. Your new fuck buddy is pals with the men who put you in the ground?”

“It’s not like _he_ tried to kill me,” Jude protested. “He felt real bad about it when I told him what happened to me. Those guys were just... old acquaintances.”

Cass just sighed. When it came to men thinking with their little head, there was no use applying common sense. “All right, so do you know where they went?”

“Up to Boulder City.”

Cass took a bite of sausage. “That’s a good ways north along a bad stretch of road,” she said around her mouthful. “And first we need to get help for Gus. After yesterday, I don’t much fancy our chances out there with the firepower we got. We’re gonna need ammo, food, and—” She glanced under the table at his feet. “—you still need boots. I’d be a whole lot happier with some armour, too. That’s a tall order when we ain’t got two caps to rub together. I’m open to ideas.”

Jude nodded gravely. “There’s a few folks need things doing around here. This cattle problem, for one. I’m hoping we can work in exchange for what we need. If you’re amenable, of course.” He chased some beans around his plate. “I know this probably wasn’t what you had in mind when you came with me.”

Cass tutted and told him what she’d told him last night. “I don’t want your apologies. I chose this of my own free will, and I’ll stick around until I don’t want to any more. Now, are you gonna eat that cornbread?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Cass**

Their best bet for medical assistance seemed to be an NCR surgeon stationed at Forlorn Hope, a base northeast of Novac. So that was where they headed in a grim procession later that day.

Jude headed the party, walking alongside Boone, Novac’s other resident red beret. The guy didn’t seem to like people a whole lot, so Cass wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to come along. Jude seemed interested in him though, asking him question after question and listening intently to his answers, brief as they were. Cass hung back with Molly and the brahmin. Gus strode stiffly along beside them, sweating and silent in his pain. The tightly wrapped body of the other guard was strapped across Zelda’s pack. Molly was determined to get him home to his wife in Vegas.

Manny Vargas brought up the rear. He’d spotted them from the dinosaur as they were packing up to leave, and not wanting to be left out, he’d arranged for Ranger Andy to cover his guard shift.

Boone had recommended they travel via Nelson to see if they could get Molly and Gus an escort to the camp from there. As they rounded the last bend in the road before the town, they saw something up ahead that made both Cass and Jude swear in unison.

A checkpoint, manned by a pissed-off looking Ranger.

*

“It’s reckless,” Ranger Milo said, lips tightening in the midst of his thick black beard. “I won’t allow it.”

“Reckless my ass,” Jude replied. He gestured to Boone and Manny. “You see those berets? You know what they mean, right?”

“That’s just dandy, but you see _those_ greenhorn sons of bitches?” Milo jabbed a thick finger at the four NCR troopers skulking by the checkpoint out of earshot. They looked young and twitchy in uniforms too big for them. “They’re the only other help I got. I sent the fastest one with word to Forlorn Hope, but that was two hours ago. He’s probably dead.” He looked to Manny and Boone. “Even with you boys, we’re outnumbered and under-equipped. Everything we had is locked down in the town, ready to be used against us. These kids are scared. And they won’t move on Nelson while the hostages are alive.”

Jude took off his hat and wiped his head on his sleeve. “Something tells me they won’t be too keen to move on Nelson if you murder their friends, either.”

Milo glared at Jude. He was clearly desperate to use his authority to shut them down, but unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any. Not here at least. It was a shame Milo was an asshole, ’cause looks-wise, he was absolutely Cass’ type. She parked her ass on a wall of sandbags and settled in to watch the argument.

“It’s not murder, it’s _mercy_ ,” Milo snarled. 

Cass saw Jude’s face twitch at the word. She could understand why after hearing what had happened in Nipton. Jude had recounted the whole grisly story after breakfast.

“Legion love to play these games, dangle the captives out there on crosses for us all to see, but trust me, they’re dead already,” Milo went on. “Best thing I can do for them is take ’em out quick and clean. And the best thing _you_ can do to help is go back to Novac and have someone radio Forlorn Hope for backup.”

Jude muttered under his breath. Cass saw him glance back at the caravan, stopped a little way down the road in the shade. Even from here she could tell Gus couldn’t walk much further. His skin was waxy and his eyes half-closed. Jude looked at Boone and Manny, who each gave a nod, and then at her. She shrugged. _What the hell._

“We’ll help,” Jude said. “But not like that. Those hostages aren’t the only cards in their hand.”

“We can’t get near them. The minute they see us, all hell breaks loose. I won’t risk it.”

“So the solution is that they _don’t_ see us,” Jude said. “Least, not these two. ‘The last thing you never see’, right Boone?”

“Right,” Boone rasped.

*

**Boone**

His heartbeat was a drum as he picked his way up the rocky slope to the cliff above Nelson. Felt like his blood was moving again for the first time in months. Rosalita was warm against his back, like she was excited too.

He had no fear. No anger. Just focus. The Ranger had been angry, and anger made you forget your training. Milo had forgotten that if the northwest watchtower was their biggest threat, it could also be their greatest asset. Especially when you had a First Recon sniper perched up in that fucker.

He crawled the last twenty yards on his belly, then rose to a crouch in a patch of sagebrush. He could see one of them already, standing in the shade under the tower, tapping one sandalled foot as he stared out over the town. After a moment he called out to someone else in that tongue Boone didn’t understand, but by the lift at the end it sounded like a question. A short reply came from above, followed by laughter from the first man. Boone scanned the area for a minute longer. Nothing.

He slid the knife from his belt and stood. He could move like a ghost when he needed to. Didn’t need his rifle to kill unseen. Silent steps forward. One hand over the man’s nose and mouth, the other slicing in one clean stroke, left to right. Hot spray along his forearm. He pulled the man against his chest and lifted him so his feet kicked out their last against air instead of loose gravel. Boone laid him down gently in his own blood.

He glanced at the ramp to the upper platform. Old, dry planks. Unlikely he’d get to the top without a sound. He could hear the second legionary just a couple of feet above him, a slight movement shifting the boards. The scrape of a chair, maybe. Boone paused, then leaned his head out just a fraction to look straight up the tower wall. Saw feet propped up on the sandbags, toes poking outward. Good.

Boone ran up the ramp and opened the legionary’s throat before his feet even hit the floor. He rolled the body off the chair and looked south to where the others would be waiting. He took off his beret and waved it once, twice above his head before putting it back on. Then he rested Rosie on the sandbags just right, planted a kiss to her stock, and put his eye to the scope. Ready to bring hell down on them.

*

**Jude**

Rocks clattered onto the road as Manny jogged down the slope toward them, binoculars bouncing against his chest.

“There’s the signal,” he said when he reached them.

“Attaboy, Craig,” Jude said. He glanced at the faces around him before coming to rest on Milo’s. “What do you think, Ranger? Are we good to go?”

Milo blew out a long breath. He set his hat back on his head with a determined nod. “Let’s clear those fuckers out.” He glanced at Cass. “Pardon my language, ma’am.”

Cass raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Are you shitting me?”

One of the NCR troopers stayed on the road to protect Molly and Gus. Jude had suggested Cass stay with them, but she’d curtly informed him that he could cut that shit out right away. Manny took up position on the rocky outcrop overlooking the square while Milo, Jude, Cass and the other three soldiers set off on their route into town. The young recruits were still terrified, but a quick pep talk from Milo and the knowledge that two angels in red berets were watching over them had boosted their courage enough to get them moving.

There were legionaries stationed on the road, so they had to detour down the rocky slope on the far side from the town, creeping down almost on their asses through the weeds to keep from kicking loose shale. At the bottom they crossed another road and descended further to what was once a street overlooking the Colorado. The houses were now nothing more than charred sticks pointing at the sky. Milo halted them with a raised hand and gestured up the slope to their left. The town was above them now. He climbed up first, pausing to peer over the edge. Then he turned and gestured for the others to follow. They scrabbled up one at a time and crouched low behind the fence that ran around the perimeter of the town.

The town was silent and almost still. Jude eyed the crosses in the square as he huddled between piles of rusting junk. The sight made his flesh go cold under his sweat-slick leather. He told himself it wouldn’t be like Nipton. They still had time on their side. One sole legionary wandered between the buildings on the other side of the square, a brown dog prowling at his feet, nose to the ground. It looked too easy, but it was supposed to. Invisible eyes kept watch from the towers and the barracks.

They crept through a break in the fence behind a dumpster. Milo broke cover first and darted to the back door of the last house in the row. He pressed his back to the wall and reached for the door. He eased it open, waited a moment, then nodded for the next one to follow. Corporal Alonso dashed across the opening and into the house. Cass went next. Then Private Young and Private Derrick. Jude went last. The oily smell of munitions greeted him in the gloom. Milo entered and pulled the door closed behind him.

“Let’s load up,” he whispered.

They moved as silently as possible. Jude went to the front window and peered out between the wooden slats. The legionary was standing by the square now, facing away while his dog cocked a leg and pissed on the base of one of the crosses. It strutted away, ears up. In the room behind him, the others cautiously prised open NCR crates and peeled back tarps. He heard a soft chuckle behind him, and turned to see Milo hefting a bulky machine out from under an oilcloth. Just then a bark pierced the silence.

“Shit,” Cass muttered. “They’ve got our scent.”

Jude caught Milo’s eye. “You ready?”

He nodded. He joined Jude at the front door with Alonso. Cass, Derrick and Young went to the back. Guns were readied and prayers whispered. Jude caught Cass’ eye before they parted ways.

“You take care,” he said.

“Back at ya, Courier,” she said, then she backed out the door and it began.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Jude**

He flung open the front door and everything happened at once. Sniper fire cracked the air as Manny and Boone saw his signal and rained down death upon the legionaries in the watchtowers. Jude dropped to a crouch and unloaded his rifle at the legionary across the square. The dog barrelling towards them was felled by a shot from Alonso, aiming her gun between the boards at the window. Above Jude’s head, there was a splintering metallic crash as a missile tore from the launcher propped on Milo’s shoulder. It shrieked through the air and tore into the farthest barracks.

Even through the sounds exploding all around him, Jude was aware of shouts and frenzied barking and the crash of a shotgun from behind the storehouse.

The men inside the remaining barracks were already at the front windows, poking gun muzzles out between the boards. Milo switched to his rifle, and he and Alonso laid down covering fire to drive the enemy back while Jude charged straight at the barracks door, leaped up the steps and tossed two incendiary grenades.

He dived off the steps and rolled, tasting dirt. Couldn’t tell yet if he’d been hit. His whole body was screaming too loud at the noise and chaos for him to register what was pain and what was adrenaline. He heard a growl and by the time he landed on his back, all he saw was fur and teeth descending. The explosion shook the barracks above him, and the dog flinched back enough for Jude to bring his rifle up and smash the butt into the dog’s side. It yelped and staggered back, but came at him again before he could stand. He threw his hands up over his face and just prayed someone was watching over him in the midst of this chaos. Someone was. The mutt’s body twisted and crumpled as a bullet sunk into its side. It saddened him to see any dog hurt, even one that wanted to chew his face off, but he didn’t favour the alternative.

“God bless you, Craig Boone,” he muttered.

He clambered to his feet, ready for the insanity to resume. A crackle of gunfire sounded within the barracks. Alonso yelped and aimed her service rifle at the door. “There’s still someone inside.”

“No,” Milo said. “It’s ammunition going up in the fire.”

Jude got as close as the flames would allow and peered through the blasted-in door. A legionary was crawling on the floor; or not really crawling so much as thrashing around, half his body still alight. Jude stepped back and watched him burn.

He scanned around, rifle raised, listening. Stillness had fallen just as suddenly as it had been broken. The whole gunfight had only lasted a minute at most. He felt a heaviness sink into him for a moment, but he shook it off. Still too much to do. Find Cass. Free the hostages. Check the other buildings. Put out the fire.

He heard a whistle to his right, and turned to see Cass heading up the path toward him, shotgun leaning on her shoulder. Jude grinned so wide his face hurt at the sight of her. Private Young limped along beside her, his fatigues stained with blood. His face was a sickly shade.

“He all right?” Jude called out as the distance closed between them.

“Dog bite,” Cass replied. “He’ll live.”

Jude wanted to hug her, but the hostages needed attention fast. He called to Alonso and Derrick to help him. The crosses were taller here than in Nipton, but the men were trussed up with rope instead of nails and wire. Maybe these legionaries weren’t quite so cruel as old wolfboy. Or maybe they just had to make do with what they had.

Manny had descended the main path into town and rushed to help them in the square. One of the soldiers was bleeding from a stab wound in his side, so they saw to him first. Derrick brought a ladder from one of the abandoned houses and leaned it up against the cross. Getting the man down without hurting him any worse proved a delicate task. Crucifixion wasn’t designed to be undone.

Milo was the tallest and strongest among them, so he held the soldier’s feet and pushed up to relieve the pressure on his arms and chest while Jude climbed the ladder with a meat cleaver. He hacked away the ropes holding his ankles, then went to work freeing the man’s arms. He had to reach around to steady him by his waist so the momentum didn’t tip him over as his hands dropped. Milo and Derrick grasped the soldier’s legs and lowered him safely to the ground. They left him with Alonso and rushed to the next cross. The second came down easy enough, but Jude wasn’t quick enough to keep the third from tumbling forward once his arms were freed. The other men grabbed for him, stumbling as they took his weight, and wrenched his arm pretty bad in the process. He was out cold and didn’t feel it, but he would when—if—he woke up.

With the rescue complete they took a moment’s pause, sweating and jelly-legged from exertion and waning adrenaline, and chugged water from their canteens.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Milo said, looking around at the devastation. “I guess that’ll teach me to say something can’t be done.”

Jude shrugged. “It couldn’t have been done without the First Recon boys,” he said. He winked at Manny then looked up at the northwest watchtower. A red beret was barely visible over the sandbags. Boone was staying put until they were all out safe. The man was a consummate professional. Jude waved up at him.

*

The radio in the barracks was untouched by the fire. While the troopers tackled the blaze at the front of the building with buckets of sand, Cass was skinny and quick enough to wriggle in through a window in back and retrieve the equipment. She passed it out to Jude before hoisting herself back out boots first.

Milo got on to Forlorn Hope and informed the command in salty tones that their job had been done for them now and they could come on down and help to clean up if they felt so inclined. Then he saw to each of the troopers, praising their efforts and thanking them. They were shaken but exhilarated, and their smiles widened even further at Milo’s attentions. They were no longer the cowering kids Jude had met at the checkpoint only an hour earlier.

Ranger Milo wasn’t so bad after all. He helped them out with some equipment and caps in return for everything they’d done, then climbed the hill back to the road to see them off. He offered his profuse gratitude to Boone and Manny, and even took his hat off to address Cass.

Finally he shook Jude’s hand firmly. “You’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” he said. “But I’m sure glad you didn’t back down. And that’s coming from another stubborn son of a bitch.”

They bid a fond goodbye to Molly and Gus, who would be escorted along with the crucified soldiers and poor dog-bitten Private Young to Forlorn Hope, where Jude hoped the medical treatment was better than the name implied.

As they began the trek back to Novac, Cass nudged him with her elbow. “I feel sorta weird for saying this,” she said, “But that was a fucking rush.”

Jude laughed shakily. “I hear you. I just about shit my pants when that hound came for me, but knowing what we did here...” He whistled. “It’s pretty mind-blowing.”

“And there I was thinking this was just your way of getting back at the Legion and Jackson all at once.”

“You got me,” he said, and held up his hands.

*

**Cass**

Cass had felt a little broken for a long time, but that evening she just about floated back to Novac feeling like nothing could kill her. Not Legion, not the roads, not her dicky ticker. She and Jude were feeding off each other and he was just as high as her.

Back in town, they received a hero’s welcome. Ranger Andy had gotten wind of the Nelson situation not long after the group had set off that morning, and as the day went on more and more of the townsfolk had gathered around his radio waiting for updates from Forlorn Hope. They knew what their brave boys had done along with the two newcomers. The result was another fine evening of free food, free booze, and accommodation at a reduced rate. (That Jeannie May Crawford was no pushover. They’d probably have to pop Caesar himself to get a room for free.)

After sundown, Jude and Cass sat around a table in Manny’s room drinking tequila and playing cards. Even Boone joined them, though he said next to nothing. At the end of one game Jude got up to go for a smoke outside, and nodded for Boone to go with him.

“What are they talking about, all serious?” Cass wondered as she eyed the two of them out on the balcony.

Many shrugged. “Maybe about why Boone hates me so much?”

“I sorta got the impression he hated everybody.”

“Well, yeah. But he hates me because I fought with his wife.”

“Wife, huh. What happened to her?”

“She ran off. Didn’t like it here.”

“Guess she couldn’t handle the pace. It takes a gutsy lady to stand by a man who sits in a plastic dinosaur all day shooting at tumbleweeds.”

Manny laughed, sputtering into his glass. He wiped his mouth.

“It sucks, though,” he said. “I’m pissed at Carla for up and leaving him, and Craig’s pissed at me for being pissed with her. I guess he’s just not ready to be pissed at her yet.”

Cass shuffled the deck and set up a game of gin rummy.

“She’s probably back on the Strip now,” Manny rambled on. “Already getting her hooks into the next poor bastard.”

Cass grunted in reply. She wasn’t about to pass judgement on a woman who’d endured marriage to the dullest man in the Mojave.

“If we run into her, I’ll pass on your regards,” she said, and poured herself another drink.

They played a hand, Cass frowning at her cards as she strained to pick out fragments of the conversation going on outside. She had no chance over Manny’s yammering and the background buzz of Radio New Vegas.

“Holy shit,” Manny said suddenly, reaching for the volume on the radio. “Are you hearing this?”

Cass hadn’t even noticed the news report begin, but now she stopped and stared as the words _NCR outpost at Nelson_ and _mysterious_ _courier_ tripping off the silver tongue of the presenter.

She yelled for Jude. “Hey Courier, get your butt in here! We’re on the radio!”

He was back indoors like a flash. “Turn it up,” he urged, rushing back to the table.

They crowded around the set, grinning like idiots as Mr New Vegas—the _actual fucking Mr New Vegas_ —described the events of the day. It was only a brief report, and some of the details were wrong, but it was still something.

“Man, that’s awesome,” Manny said as the next record began to play. He and Boone had been name-checked in the report. “I sure hope someone at McCarran’s listening to this.”

“They better quit calling me ‘Courier Six’, though,” Jude complained.

Cass snorted. “Sounds more mysterious than ‘some scruffy fuck with a hole in his head’.”

“Six is my unlucky number.”

“Why?” Manny asked, but Jude waved the question away.

“Travelling folk are superstitious bastards,” he said. “Ain’t that right, Miss Cassidy?”

“All the damn good it does us,” she grumbled, but she was in too light a mood to let thoughts of her lost rig drag her down.

After a few shots of tequila they felt even more invincible. So much so that they thought it a fine idea to go and investigate the McBride’s mysterious cattle problem.

Boone had the night off on account of being a hero, but nevertheless he bowed out and bid them goodnight. Which left Jude, Manny and Cass lying on their bellies in a row on a roof near the McBride residence, giggling and trying to hold their guns straight while they scoped out the area around the farmstead.

They’d been up there a little while when they saw someone approaching along the road from the east. Manny peered through his rifle scope.

“Huh. It’s Milo.”

“Is it, now,” Cass said gleefully.

They hollered to get his attention and he wandered down the street to see what they were up to. He stood staring up in amusement, hands on his hips.

“I’m on my way to Ranger Station Charlie,” he said. “They have problems with radio communications down there sometimes, so I’m going to report what happened today directly. What on earth are you doing up there?”

“Catching rustlers,” Jude told him. “All in a day’s work for Courier Six and his fearless gang.”

Manny poked him. “I thought you hated that name?”

“Yeah, I do. Six is a stupid number.”

“Not if you’re playing dice.”

“Well, I guess I’ll leave you folks to it,” Milo said with a smile. “You take care, Jude. Manny. Miss Cassidy.”

He gave her a nod, almost a little bow, and she winked at him in reply. She thought about his nice strong handshake. Man, she wanted to climb him like a rock. She watched as he strode away.

“You know what?” she said. “I think I should accompany the Ranger. You never know what kind of dangers that poor defenceless man might run into on a dark road at night.”

She snatched the bottle of tequila from between the two men and swung down off the roof. “I’m sure you boys can handle a cow-killer without me.”

Jude peered down at her with narrowed eyes. “What are you after?”

“What, I can’t show a little support for the brave boys of the NCR Rangers?” She gave him a sloppy salute before she wandered away.

*

**Arcade**

Arcade lay in the narrow bunk in the corner of the same room where he worked all day. The only light glowed from the dials on the radio. He’d moved it to the night stand and cranked the sound right down so it wouldn’t disturb Julie in the room above his. His breathing was soft and shallow as he strained to hear the news report.

“All three soldiers survived,” read Mr New Vegas in his silky tones, “Although the NCR has so far failed to comment on their condition. A spokesman at nearby Camp Forlorn Hope did inform us that the operation was a combined effort of the NCR, Rangers and a small group of unnamed contractors. However...” His voice lowered to a conspiratorial hum, and Arcade had to hold his breath completely and press his ear closer to the set to hear what came next. “...Our anonymous sources assure us that the man at the heart of the rescue was none other than our very own Courier Six.”

Arcade tried not to smile at those last two words. Although he was completely alone, he was still embarrassed to be gobbling up the news like this. He was a grown man, and a weary, cynical one at that, but in that moment he felt the way he had when he was a boy listening to the adventure stories that used to play on the radio back West. That feeling of excitement and almost painful longing had been sneaking back every time he heard about the mysterious Courier Six. The stories were becoming more frequent. Since the curious events in Nipton, the Courier had supposedly rescued a trade caravan from Legion ambush out on Highway 95, and now these heroics in Nelson.

The radio plays of Arcade’s youth had been fictions, and he was well aware that Courier Six and his renegade gang might be, too. Radio New Vegas was hardly the most reputable of news sources. It had little competition and therefore few willing to challenge its authenticity. The interviews with witnesses sounded convincing enough. Then again, so had the anguished cries of people being gobbled up by towering killer robots to his nine-year-old self, cowering in his bunk bed in Navarro. The station played what the Wastelanders wanted to hear, and evidently what they wanted to hear about right now—Arcade included—was a brave wanderer fighting the Legion. Fighting and winning, even if the battlefields so far had been small. It sounded too good to be true. It probably was.

The news had ended now and a song was playing. Normally that would be Arcade’s cue to reach out and switch the set off, but he rather liked this one. Nat King Cole’s voice raised it above schmaltz, and it sort of suited the mood Arcade was in. He knew he was acting like an idiot, getting caught up in a story like this. He blamed it in part on his most recent reread of _The Odyssey_ —or had that come after he’d first heard of Courier Six? Anyway, there was that, and the damned Rodrigo guitar concerto he hadn’t been able to get out of his head for the last week or so. It all had the same effect. And it was all symptomatic of the same problem: that Arcade was bored, jaded and—if he dared to be really honest—desperately unhappy. Life in Freeside was never _dull_ , exactly, and certainly never safe; nevertheless his work was tedious and unrewarding, and his past had left him a coward. It didn’t take much for the stories on the radio to take on more life and colour than the plant samples on his desk. Julie was right: people needed a hero, and Arcade was no exception now that he’d given up on ever being one himself. Getting lost in stories may not be the most constructive solution, even if it was an improvement on the ways he’d tried to distract himself in the past.

However. _However_. There was one particular detail that had snagged his attention and kept him from backsliding into pessimism. Nobody knew where the Courier was from or where he was headed, but the latest version of the Nelson story claimed that the two snipers in his party hailed from the nearby town of Novac. Arcade’s ears had pricked up immediately at the mention of the name. Novac was where Daisy lived. If the Courier was real and he had passed through Novac, Daisy would know about it. She knew everything that went on in that town, and not because she was a busybody—far from it—but because she, like Arcade, was an observer. She had to be to survive. You could take a woman out of the Enclave, _et cetera_...

The Fort had a short-wave radio set for keeping in contact with the other Followers posts. He’d used it in the past to check on his ‘family’ up in Novac. Perhaps it was time to give Aunt Daisy another call.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Ava, because a) you're awesome, and b) it has that cute bearded boy you like ;)

**Jude**

The McBride’s rustler turned out to be a giant blue supermutant wearing a necklace of brahmin teeth. After a molerat rooting in the undergrowth sparked a false alarm, Jude and Manny hadn’t held out much hope of success, and they’d rolled onto their backs on the roof to smoke and watch the stars instead. Jude had been drifting into an intoxicated doze when they heard something growl just after midnight.

The monster blended into the inky blue night like it was invisible, but Manny’s marksmanship was superior even after the liquor. He cranked out three shots. They heard a ferocious groan and splintering of wood as the culprit staggered into the fence around the brahmin enclosure, sending its inhabitants into a hoof-stomping panic. Jude scrabbled down off the roof to investigate and found the monster dragging itself back towards cover. Manny’s slugs had caught it in the back and thigh. Jude set the barrel of his rifle to its skull and put it out of its misery.

By that time Alice and Dusty McBride were at the back door of their farmhouse in their nightgowns, wild-haired and wide-eyed at the commotion. They cheered up no end when they learned what had been done. Dusty even tried to ply the heroes with more booze, but Jude was ready to crash by that point. He let Manny lead him back to the motel, fingers interlaced and weaving a little on the road.

Manny was keen to fool around to finish off the night’s celebrations, but Jude wasn’t really in the mood. They lay on Manny’s bed, Jude rubbing lazy circles on Manny’s back and talking soft to him until the other man’s breathing became steady and slow. He waited for sleep to take him, but it eluded him, drifting further out of reach the longer he lay there like a city always on the horizon.

Eventually he crept from the room and lit a cigarette on the balcony. He listened to bugs scritching and chirping in the dark. He liked being outdoors at night. After all his years on the road, he was more at home sleeping in a camp than under a roof.

The adrenaline burst at the ranch had sobered him up and popped the bubble of his jubilation, leaving him pensive. Jude began to worry he’d made a big mistake. He had to look ahead. Their actions in Nelson would not go unnoticed by the Legion. Dog-boy had given him a message in Nipton, and he’d responded today with one of his own: a _FUCK CAESAR_ in ten-foot high letters. Now his heroics were being touted on the airwaves all across the Mojave. Any hope of anonymity while they travelled was gone. Milo had been right first time: Jude had been reckless.

He didn’t regret saving those soldiers. They were in safe hands now, as were Molly and Gus. And he sure wouldn’t lose any sleep over the legionaries who’d coughed up their last in the flames. The problem was that by stepping into the fight today he hadn’t just declared war with the Legion; he’d befriended their sworn enemies. Having the NCR owe him one was a nice idea on paper, but if they couldn’t protect their own they wouldn’t do shit for him and Cass. Jude was losing more respect for them with every step he took across this desert. There were decent men like Milo, and plenty of blameless kids like Alonso and her buddies. It was the brass that was the problem. He’d rather not be associated with them at all. But it was too late for that.

He sighed and stubbed out his cigarette on the railing before flicking it off into the darkness. Tomorrow they were due to set out again on the 95 toward Boulder City. That road was dangerous enough without having Legion targets painted on their backsides. It was a long walk to the next trading post. Jude wondered if it was really worth it. He’d told Cass they would look for her rig, and he still wanted very much to help her, but he’d made that promise before they’d accidentally gotten famous. He wanted to track down Benny’s boys too, but not if it meant getting himself and Cass slaughtered on the way.

The heart-sinking fact was that he didn’t have much of a choice. They couldn’t stay in Novac. Doing so would make a target of the town that had shown them such hospitality. And turning round and going back just meant another long stretch of road with nothing good at the end of it. If they could make it as far north as Freeside, or better yet onto the Strip itself, they could blend in and disappear. Wait it out until the NCR Bear and Legion Bull were done shaking their dicks in each other’s faces.

Jude looked over at the silhouette of the dinosaur blocking out the stars. North it was. He’d just have to think of a smarter way to get there.

*

**Cass**

Milo looked even finer out of his uniform than he did in it, a broad-shouldered mountain of a man with thick dark hair on his chest. Cass liked the way he hissed when she worked her fingers into it and pulled while she was riding him. Liked the way his dog tags dangled cool against her skin when he threw her on her back and fucked her. _Loved_ the way he gave head, with total dedication and a hunger like she was his last meal. His beard scratched and tickled against her thighs and pussy. He didn’t take it easy on her either, once she made it clear just how she liked it. The bed smacked into the wall hard enough to rattle the whole damn trailer.

She’d never felt more alive than today. First with teeth and leather and blades coming at her and the shotgun roaring in her hand. Now with this man under her, over her, solid and real, all breathless adoration that wouldn’t last beyond tonight but was beautiful nonetheless.

They passed the last of the tequila back and forth between them as they got their breath back, their limbs throwing wild shadows in the lantern light.

“Fuck,” Cass muttered as liquor tipped from the bottle onto her chin. It trickled down her neck and chest. “That’s your fault. Damn, my hands are still shaking.”

“You’re welcome.”

Milo bowed his head to lap the spilled tequila from her skin. He chased the trail all the way back up to her face and kissed her mouth before taking the bottle back for his own taste.

“So what business you got up in Vegas?” he asked her at last.

“Just business.”

“I heard you had a caravan that got hit.”

Cass arched an eyebrow at him. He’d probably heard that from Ranger Stepinac when he checked in at the office before their little tumble. She wasn’t keen on snoops. If he hadn’t just given her the best orgasm she’d had in a year and change, she would have torn a strip off him.

“So you think you know about me now?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” he said. “Just a little bit. Like what you did today. You’re a brave woman.”

“Anyone’s brave when they got nothing to lose.”

“You wouldn’t have fought if there was nothing to lose.”

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t want to see belief in his eyes for something that didn’t exist.

“Whatever you say.”

She stared at the rust-spotted roof. Truth was, there really wasn’t much of anything inside her beyond booze and memories. She liked Jude; maybe enough to call the idiot her friend. Any other ties she'd had were gone. It was a long time since anything much had touched her heart. She’d dived into the fight today because it made her feel alive, not because she thought the NCR deserved the Mojave or even had a snowball in hell’s chance of winning it. And certainly not because she was a hero. She didn’t believe she was bad. She wasn’t good either. She just was.

The bottle was dry, so she moved to peel herself off him and get up. Milo put out one big paw and pulled her back to him. Cass felt a twinge as one part of her fought the other.

“Five more minutes,” she grumbled.

“Stay here. Road isn’t safe at night.”

Cass sighed. “ _Ten_ minutes.”

She didn’t want to be here come morning. Didn’t want his awkward looks or small talk or to learn about his kids back home. Certainly didn’t need the whole Ranger station witnessing her walk of shame.

“I’ll walk you back to Novac,” he coaxed, sneaking the blanket back over her hips. He’d already unfastened her hair from its ponytail, and now he brushed it to one side to kiss her neck.

“I didn’t come here looking for a gentleman,” she replied, shifting her ass against him under the covers. “Now how about you quit talking and do something useful with that pipe you're poking me with?”

*

Milo did walk with her the next day, although he swore he wasn’t coddling her and had to head back to Nelson anyway. Cass shooed him off before they reached the Dino Dee-Lite.

“You take care now, Miss Rose,” he said, tipping his hat. “I’ll be listening for news.”

Cass grunted. _Miss Rose_ indeed. “Just don’t make us come rescue you again.”

She let him sneak in one last kiss, then watched his fine behind as it retreated along the road east.

Jude was already up, damn him, perched in a wooden chair outside their room with his feet propped on the railings.

“Well now, look what the _bear_ dragged in,” he called out as she climbed the stairs. “And what time do you call this, young lady?”

“Suck my boot heel, Courier.”

“You had breakfast?” He grinned wide. “Or did you get your fill at the Ranger station?”

“First, I’m starving. Second, we ain’t doing this. Just so we're clear. You don’t tell me about your nocturnal congress, and I don’t tell you about mine.”

“Oh come on, now.” Jude swung his feet down to the floor. “At least tell me if you had fun. What was the big man like?” His chair scraped back. “Was everything, you know, to scale?”

He laughed at the middle finger she brandished at him, and trailed her inside.

“Did he at least know where to put it?”

*

Once they’d eaten and Jude had disappeared to run a few errands around the town, they regrouped back at the room.

“This is great and all,” Cass said, “But I’m not sure it’s all gonna fit in our packs.”

She stood with her hands on her hips, staring along the rows of goods laid out on the motel bed. Their wordly goods had multiplied considerably in the last twenty-four hours.

They had their weapons: his rifle and ten mil pistol, her shotgun and the revolver she’d taken from Marty. Molly had told her to keep it. The holster, too. Said it was some sort of karma for helping put down the men who killed him. Cass wasn’t sure she believed in karma, but she was glad of the side piece. They had a good knife each, and a stack of extra ammo courtesy of Milo and the storehouse at Nelson. He’d even gotten them some clothing, a couple of grenades and a hundred caps for their trouble.

Food in abundance. The McBrides had loaded them with enough meat to fatten up an NCR outpost. Fresh slabs of steak for them to fry up tonight when they camped; round mince patties with herbs and onion; salt beef and jerky. It looked like half a brahmin laid out there in greased paper parcels, and in fact the old couple had offered them a whole one. A live one, in exchange for helping solve their mystery rustling predicament. Cass and Jude had done some long thinking on that one. A beast of burden would give them a lot more freedom to scavenge and even trade a little on their journey north. But in the end they opted for speed. A brahmin cow made a big, slow target.

Two pans and tin plates and cups. Water canteens. A small oil lantern. Gun oil and rags; bandages, stimpaks, and three packs of RadAway still cold from the refrigerator and gathering condensation. Two books with the covers torn off, pages to be used for bathroom breaks. There was their clothing, plus a few pieces of armour they’d gathered. A little from Nelson and some from the folks in Novac. Ranger Andy had given Cass a helmet that made her look like an asshole but she was bound to be grateful for it sooner or later. Jude finally had a pair of boots to replace his old ones, although he was hesitant to throw his others away.

“These boots have seen me across hundreds of miles,” he complained.

“Yeah, and they look like it.”

“They’re special to me. I’ve outrun nightstalkers in these boots.”

“Didn’t outrun a bullet in ’em though, did you?”

Jude sulked and put them on the ‘maybe’ pile.

“Say, how would you feel about an extra pair of shoulders to help us with all this?” he asked.

Cass looked up from rolling a pair of jeans as tightly as possible and narrowed her eyes at him. “Who? Red beret?”

Jude nodded. “Sorry I didn’t get chance to run it by you first,” he said. “But I asked him how he’d feel about coming with us. We know it’s gonna be tough heading north, especially now we’re infamous enemies of the Legion and all. We could do with the extra firepower, and it doesn’t come much better than First Recon. He proved that in Nelson.”

“True enough,” she said. “If you want him to come, it's all right with me. Just don’t be giving me cause to regret it. No nookie around the campfire. It was bad enough with a floor and three goddamn walls in between.”

Jude looked lost for a moment, than laughed in surprise. “I’m not talking about Manny.”

“Who then? Wait—Boone?”

Jude nodded. Cass stared at the wall for a moment, trying to imagine Boone as a travel companion. Manny was agreeable enough, but Boone? The guy had barely spoken three words to her thus far and she had no idea what he was like. Surly was an understatement.

“Well, maybe the strong silent type could be an advantage. It’s not like you don’t talk enough shit for the three of us.” She dodged the balled-up socks Jude tossed at her. “You trust him though? Think he’s solid?”

“I do. And I think he trusts me. I helped him out with a... personal problem.”

“Such as?” When he simply shrugged, she went on. “Don’t you be getting all mysterious on me. I got no patience for secrets.”

“I know. I said I’ll be clear with you and I will. But this one ain’t my secret to share.”

She watched him for a moment, then nodded.

“Fair enough. Must be something juicy though, to convince him to up and leave. Novac’s a nice enough place.”

“Have you thought of staying here?”

She put down a roll of bandage and frowned at him. “You telling me I should?”

“Course not. But you could, if you wanted. It is a good place. Safer than most.”

“You think I came with you ’cause I was looking for _safe_? Don’t condescend to me, Courier. You like it here so much, _you_ stay.”

“All right, point taken. And as for Boone, I think he’s ready to move on. Or will be once he’s tied up his loose end.”

Cass recalled what Manny had told her about Boone’s runaway wife. Maybe Jude had promised to help him track her down on the Strip. Didn’t seem like the brightest of ideas to Cass. If the girl wanted out, that was up to her. But she would press Jude about it another time.

“Your boy’s gonna be real sad you picked his buddy over him.”

“Manny’s a sweetheart,” Jude said. “But I won’t fool around with anyone I travel with. It’s my rule.”

“You got rules now?”

Jude shrugged. “I’m making them up as I go along.”

  



	9. Chapter 9

**Boone**

Boone knocked on the open door to the motel room. Jeannie May looked up from where she was throwing a clean sheet over the bed.

“Craig,” she said warmly. 

“Afternoon, Jeannie May. Here, let me help you with that.”

He tucked along one side of the mattress while she took the other.

“I heard a rumour you might be thinking of leaving us,” she said.

Boone stiffened for a moment. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Oh, you know. These walls talk.”

“I might,” he said. “Courier has some work for me, maybe. I like Novac, but there ain’t much here for me any more.”

She stood straight and put her hands on her hips. “Now how can you say that, Craig? Novac is your home. We’re like a big family here. You have Manny and Cliff and Andy. You have _me_.”

Boone smoothed a big hand down over the sheets, pushing out the wrinkles. “I know I do. And that’s why I wanted to come talk to you first. To tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

A sad smile grew on Jeannie May’s face. He helped her pull the blankets up and tuck them neatly.

“Speaking of which, there’s something I want to show you,” he said. “Down at Ms Gibson’s place.”

She tilted her head to one side. “What are you up to, Craig Boone?”

He smiled. “It’s a surprise.”

*

She chattered as they walked, though he didn’t hear much of it. The usual gossip and rumours, though now it mostly concerned the courier and his trader friend. She gave him her opinion on Jude and Manny, and how they were both good men, of course, but that sort of behaviour was an affront to society when you were really honest about it, because it wasn’t right to put your own pleasures before the future survival of the human race. Boone just let her talk, letting the words roll off him into the dust.

“It doesn’t look like Dolly’s home,” she said, holding a hand above her glasses and squinting off along the road. Sure enough, the chairs outside Old Lady Gibson’s house were empty, and her dogs were nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe she’s out back,” he said. “But it don’t matter if she’s not.”

Jeannie May called out for Dolly and rapped on her door, but her junkyard was locked up and so was the house. Boone shouldered the pack off his back and swung it to the ground. He sat down on one of the chairs next to a chipped dog bowl and a rusted can.

“Come sit with me a moment,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

Jeannie May gathered her skirt around her knees and sat gingerly on the seat beside his. For the second time she asked him, “What are you up to, Craig Boone?”

He didn’t answer her for a minute. He looked out at the view; the mountains rising up to the west, nothing to the east but dust chasing along the broken highway. Everything parched and silent.

“Carla found it too quiet out here,” he said.

“I know, sweetheart,” Jeannie May said. She patted his hand with her scrawny one. “I mean no disrespect, but she was a city girl. Our little town must have seemed frightful dull.”

Boone reached down and took a package from his pack. A small box covered in scuffed velvet. It would have been red once, but the top and sides were a faded pink.

“She didn’t like the quiet, especially at night, so I got her this for when I was on watch.” He wound the key in the back of the box a few times. He could feel Jeannie May watching him. He opened the box carefully, reverently. The little ballerina straightened up on her spring and started to turn in time with the music. “She said it was silly, that she wasn’t a child. But I knew she liked it. It was always open on the night stand when I came home.”

“It’s beautiful, sweetheart. What a thoughtful gift.”

“See, that’s the way she was,” Boone explained. “She’d say one thing, give you sass, but that wasn’t how she was underneath. She’d learned to be that way on the Strip. It’s not an easy place for a woman with a big heart like hers. So she hid it away. But I knew her.”

Jeannie May’s hand reached out tentatively and patted his forearm. “Of course you did,” she said. “She was very lucky to have you.”

Boone turned the key in the back of the music box again, twisted it a few more times so the music played faster.

“You must think I’m so stupid,” he said. “Thought I wouldn’t know my own wife. Wouldn’t know that all her things were still in the room. Everything but her nightgown.”

Jeannie May froze for a moment. He could almost feel the air go cold between them. Her hand shrank back from him.

It didn’t take long for the cogs to start moving again. “Craig, you’re scaring me. What are you talking about?” She was scared, no doubt about it. Her voice trembled. “Did—Do you think someone took Carla away?”

“I been wondering, did you see them that night?” He couldn’t look at her. “Did you hand them the key? Or did you just leave it in the lock and go about your business. Did you sleep that night, Jeannie May?”

She drew herself up in the chair in a fine show of outrage. “This is nonsense,” she snapped. “I don’t know what you’re implying. I never hurt anybody.”

“There were three of them. Three big men to take my baby away.”

“You lost your wife. You’re hurting. But—”

“Tracked them all the way south. I saw the place they took her. Wasn’t fit for animals.”

Jeannie May stood up and took a few steps back. “I think we should get back to town. We’ll get you some help. You’re not seeing things straight.”

Her eyes darted around, hoping for Dolly or some other passer-by to come to her rescue. There was nobody. Old Ms Gibson was off scavenging along the 95, where Boone had spotted her earlier from Dinky’s jaws. She wouldn’t be home for hours.

He took a folded piece of paper out of the music box. He held it out to her. “Would you mind taking a look at this for me?” he said. She eyed it like it was a landmine. “Go on, take it. Maybe you could read it out loud. There’s all sorts of big words there a fella like me wouldn’t understand.”

She reached out a shaking hand and snatched it from him. He watched her, thinking how impossible it now seemed that he had ever looked at her and seen a kindly old woman and not the wicked thing underneath, twisted by its own greed. The moment she unfolded the paper she let out a cry and tossed it to the ground. Never mind. He already knew what it said. _We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased..._

“One thousand caps,” he said. “And all this time you been waiting on five hundred more. Guess I should tell you the rest ain’t ever coming.”

“Craig, this isn’t true! None of it, you have to believe me!”

“Since you didn’t kill her outright, I’ll give you a sporting chance,” he said. He twisted the key one more time, then set the music box down on the chair beside him. “You got until the music stops.”

She didn’t run. She stood and stared, first at him and then at Rosalita leaning against his chair. She shook her head left and right so the loose skin on her face trembled. “Craig, what are you saying?” Her voice was a thin wail. “You’re talking crazy, this isn’t you.”

Boone laid Rosie across his lap, and still she didn’t run.

“Stop this! I am not your enemy. I take care of this town. I take care of _you_ , Craig. I’ve always been taking care of you!” Her pitch went faster and higher as the music box went slower and slower.

He took off his sunglasses. “Run on home now, Jeannie May.”

Finally she ran. Back towards Novac, shrieking for help as she went. But she was old and weak and her breath didn’t carry the words far. Boone watched the ballerina turn, turn, slowly turn. Imagined Carla’s eyes growing heavy as she lay in their room, dark hair fanned out on the pillow, trying to stay awake to listen but unable to fight the pull of sleep. The music stopped. The dancer went still. Carla was gone, asleep forever.

He raised Rosalita and took his shot.

*

**Jude**

Boone came by the room while Cass was washing up in the bathroom. Their groaning packs sat ready by the foot of the bed.

Jude invited Boone in, but the man stayed put in the doorway. As usual there was nothing on show, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

“You okay?” Jude asked.

Boone seemed not to hear the question. “It’s done,” he said.

"Right."

Unease squirmed in Jude's belly, but he reminded himself what he'd dug up in the motel office. Evidence of wrongs that had needed putting right. 

“Here. Take this. I don’t wanna see it again.”

Boone held out a small canvas pouch on a long string. It was heavier than it looked as it settled in Jude's palm.

“What is it?” Jude unfastened it and saw a few long rows of stacked bottlecaps. A fat roll of NCR dollars. Even the glint of Legion silver in the bottom. “Tell me this ain’t hers.”

“Not any more.”

“Fuck. Some of this money is for... Gosh, I don’t know, Boone. It don’t seem right to take it. It’s dirty money.”

Boone shook his head. “The dirt was on her. Money’s just money. Least you’ll do something good with it.” He turned away. “I’ll be ready in thirty minutes.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so two becomes three! The gang is slowly coming together. :') Whenever I play FNV I feel so sad that I can't actually have all my companions hang out together all the time. 
> 
> Like almost all the story so far, I wrote this chapter ages ago but it's still one of my favourite things I've written. Getting under Boone's skin was really interesting and rewarding. As much as I eyeroll at the dead wife/gf trope in general, and particularly in Fallout 4, there's something I find more poignant about Boone's back story. Poor Carla. :'( 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone reading and supporting this! Your comments have been so wonderful to receive and really helped me to bring this fic back to life. :)


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